


The Meaning of Ithaca

by greenasphodel



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Case, Bad Flirting, Case Fic, Character Study, Depressed John, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Slash, POV John Watson, POV Third Person Limited, Relationship(s), Romance, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenasphodel/pseuds/greenasphodel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John for her was what Sherlock was for John. They were the most mathematically stable triangle, until Sherlock went off and died; but of course he couldn't stay dead forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tell Me a Riddle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is set after A Scandal in Belgravia and before Reichenbach Falls.  
> Poem by Cavafy.

**Part I**

**Tell Me a Riddle**

_As you set out for Ithaka_  
hope the voyage is a long one,  
full of adventure, full of discovery.

The first time that he talked her, it was at the shoddy pub that he frequented across the street from his clinic.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen her, no, but it wasn’t as if he ran into her all that often either.  Actually, he had only ever seen her in this particular pub.  Come to think of it, it was a little strange, seeing how she must have worked nearby, and after so many months of clinic work, he had yet to see her anywhere but at The Old Bell Pub.

Now, John was a man beginning to be very desperate for some sort—any sort—of action.  Sarah had ended their relationship after the New Zealand doctorial conference last year, quirking her left eyebrow and being so logical about it that he couldn’t hold a grudge against her.  It was all downhill from there.  A month after that he managed wheedle a date with the one with the spots (Emmy, he corrected himself), who had lasted all of six dates before she decided that she neither cared for crime fighting nor crime fighting stories.  The one with the nose (Rosa, with the dog) dumped him after four dates, and he didn’t even bother phoning Jeannette the schoolteacher again after Christmas.  That led to three months, one week and six days without shagging, without snogging, without _anything_.

That made him sound like some sex-crazy teenager, didn’t it?  Well it certainly did in his mind, but John was getting too old to be blasé about the whole dating game, to be frank.  Even a man as charming and lovable as himself faced some trouble finding game, especially since all the news photos of him standing next Sherlock made him look like a hobbit.

He certainly had to cast a wide net in hopes of finding that one sparkling woman (she probably didn’t exist, she _had_ to exist) who would take him, all of him, so let his mind judge himself but he really needed to pay attention to _every_ woman _everywhere_.

There were a couple of things that a woman had to be in order for her to be tolerant of John’s certain … pastimes.  A ridiculously good temper, for one; also understanding when he got called away by a short text message.  She cannot tremble at the thought of murderers and death, and always attentive as to which arm John had bruised the night before in a mad chase across London.  Ideally she should have a certain fascination with crimes, and also a fondness of cuddling on the couch in front of crap telly, but John knew when to stop asking.  In fact, John knew that it was impractical to expect any woman to fit even half of the criterion that he listed, which was why despite being a functioning war veteran who radiated a nice-guy-to-settle-down-with aura for miles, he was still unattached.  Nothing short of the Victorian ideal of the Angel in the House could ever deal with John, because to deal with John meant dealing with Sherlock, and so far the only person who could do _that_ was John himself.

That grudging knowledge didn’t stop him from trying though.

But it was not his desperation that led him to notice this particular woman.  No, his attention was called because he had seen her a couple times here already, and she was always in a full suit, blazer and all, inside The Old Bell’s, the pub that was known for two quid house stout and disgustingly oily burritos (although John was fond of their fried pork cracklings, and indulged himself every once in a while).

The woman didn’t look like she’d eat anything but a salad, and certainly looked like she shouldn’t be downing two quid anything.  A year of scampering beside Sherlock had taught him a few things about _observing_ , and as John patiently waited for Mike Stamford, he observed this interesting bunch.

She was with a co-worker again, judging by their similar state of being overdressed—a male one, close but not intimate from the distance between them.  She was here with different men, but her body language was almost bordering but never crossing to flirty.  And they were here pretty late alright; once John had seen her with two other blokes at midnight, nursing some sort of drink on the rocks.  That was one of those nights that were not good—not exactly nightmares or insomnia, but just general sleeplessness, not helped by the burning violin noises from downstairs.  He had come here in hopes of getting a few beers as a nightcap.  The Old Bell was known for serving late, sometimes bypassing the law to close down in favor of late patrons who were generous (drunk) tippers.

Back to observing, John leashed his thoughts back as he waited for his pork cracklings and frothy beer.

She had laid down her blazer over the back of the chair, neatly folded— meticulous, very much practiced.  The soldier in him admired the precision.  The gray blazer was crisp and freshly ironed, but there were wrinkles at the elbow and along her skirt—a long day at work, and maybe dry cleaned last week?  John wasn’t too sure about the timeline; he didn’t have Sherlock’s eyes, but he was at least on track.  The material looked heavy, almost too thick for the weather, and certainly much warmer than the breezy beige blouse she had on now.  So her office was well-heated.  It was an expensive suit, and her shoes looked new and designer, so it wasn’t likely that she only had this one suit for the seasons.  She got cold very easily then, possibly bad circulation from a sedentary lifestyle.

 _Boring_ lifestyle, he grinned as he thought about the late night chases and the new battlefield that he discovered, living with Sherlock.

None of her people belonged in the seedy, cheapskate pub, so she frequented this place for convenience in location then, and perhaps also the late hours.  Just like him.

Well except he would never order a _martini_ in a place like this, like her friend-co-worker person.  Or a martini in general.  It was too James-Bond-esque, and definitely bordered on trying too hard.  He was willing to that bet it’s a Vesper martini too.

Bankers, or lawyers, he decided as he bit into the slightly charred burger.  The grease made up for the lack of attention in cooking though, so it didn’t taste half bad.  It was just what the stomach needed to prepare for booze.

Mike Stamford still hadn’t come, and John texted him to ask if he was on his way.

His phone chimed very quickly in response, and Mike apologized overzealously for his tardiness.  Said he would treat him to a pint, and John was alright with that.  Besides, he owed _everything_ to Mike, so he sat still and drummed his fingers on the table and went back to observing.  If he went back to the apartment now, he would only find more holes in the wall, undoubtedly.

The other people weren’t that interesting.  There were a couple of sports fans who were as much a staple as the bartender himself, and a vaguely touristy couple.  The woman had a pearl necklace, but their camera was a flimsy, cheap model, so it was probably a fake.  The bloke had the tell-tale beer belly, and it wasn’t surprising that he drank most of that pitcher of Miller Lite.  The wife made him get Lite, in all likelihood.  The bartender’s hair was slicked back.  Maybe he had a date later, or ended one before.  In any case, he didn’t scowl any less today, so it wasn’t a very good looking bird that he landed.

Soon, John ran out of things to observe, and wished that Sherlock was here.  No never mind that, scratch that, please, he started knocking on wood, please don’t let Sherlock come here.  He was going to have a good night catching up with an old friend, and that would not go according to plan if Sherlock was within five blocks of here.

A phone vibrated in the distance, remarkably loud for something meant to be discreet.  He could see the suit-woman’s companion pick his Blackberry up and start reading through something.

John couldn’t tell what his expression was, but the woman seemed extremely composed, not at all upset at such rude behavior.  In fact, she seemed to have almost been expecting it.  The man turned to say something to her.  She shook her head slightly, gripped her glass tighter—ah, he was asking if she wanted to leave then—and _glanced at John_.

John could feel his mind stop and blank out for a second.  During which time, the man stood up, threw down a crisp bill from his leather wallet, and burst out of the room, leaving the woman there still sipping her drink.

John blinked and thought, _Okay, a woman at a bar stays behind, unconsciously or consciously looks at a man at the bar—well that’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?_   The woman just did a double take on him, discreetly but not entirely inconspicuously, not for his eyes. 

John felt giddy at his own deduction, also emboldened to chat her up.

So he wiped his mouth carefully with the questionable napkins on the table, took his basket of pork cracklings and stout, and walked over.

“Mind another pint joining?”  Alright, it wasn’t his best pick up line, but he hadn’t been on top of his game lately, so he deserved some slack.

She took a look at him, sharp, carefully drawn eyes giving him a once over with a sort of alarming efficiency.  John all of a sudden became very aware of his attire.  He was in his oatmeal-colored cable knit jumper that, of course, made him look pudgier than he actually was.  It was his favorite jumper, being woolly and extraordinarily warm, but even he had to admit it wasn’t his best look.  And he was standing, which highlighted his ah, _average_ height, unfortunately.

Just as he felt like the back of his ears started to burn, she smiled suddenly and said, “One should never deny potentially good company.”

John thought that it was meant to be both a greeting and an approval.  It was a wide smile, one that thinned her lips, moved her cheeks, and curved the ends of her eyes.  He decided that she had a good face for spreading a smile—some girls were like that, nothing much in their features to recommend them until they smiled.  This woman was not particularly pretty, not in the Irene Adler way—the kind that stopped hearts and never lifted them.  No, despite a thin face, she had an extra padding along her cheeks that made her jaw look round: a small diet would have done her well.  But she had that understated look that was easy on the eyes, and in her smile her eyes curled, the edges crinkling upwards just so, almost like a bold flick of the painter’s wrist.  Here was a face that made people feel at ease, without edges.  She had dark hair and pale skin—from her office job undoubtedly—and when he sat down he found that he was a good two or three inches taller, which made him feel immediately better.

He is faintly pleased at passing her appraisal, in the way that he was inclined to care about the opinions of people who absolutely did not matter.  In fact, he was more inclined nowadays, somehow feeling like he should care for two people, for both of them.

“The House special?” she asked flippantly once he set his pint down.  Her accent wasn’t from around here, but John had a hard time pinning it down to a geographical location—it sounded like one of those swashbuckler Hollywood movies.  Her tone also wasn’t what he expected.  It was strangely disconcerting—John had anticipated a mellower person, judging from her looks, sweet and unobtrusive.  But he supposed that all suits were rather sharp and flippant—it came with being on the job.

“I’ve the stout,” John said agreeably, “but I’m good with anything.”  He wasn’t a discerning drinker, and he was also becoming self-conscious again.

Up close, he could see the watch that adorned her wrist—classic bracelet, rose-gold plated, and if he couldn’t recognize the subtle plaid pattern stamped on the sunray dial, it said ‘Burberry’ in friendly, capitalized letters.  He couldn’t tell what brand her handbag was, but he had seen enough of the same one in SoHo to know that it was only sold in places like Selfridge’s—it even had one of those attached mirror thingamajigs.  Her blouse was high quality silk, he could tell, and the seams held together so firmly that it could be only a few months old at most.  Her phone on the table, however, was an inconspicuous Blackberry that was quite old, both in model and by usage.

“I approve of your taste.  All of my co-workers are sworn off darker stouts, no heart amongst them,” she pulled a slight face that was obviously meant to be a joke.

It didn’t fit: the puzzle pieces didn’t fit.  She wasn’t supposed to _approve_ of him, and that was not his insecurity talking.  Judging by everything so far, she should be at best politely acceptant of a plebeian, watered-down Guinness, and at worst wrinkle her little nose in disdain—but certainly not embrace the culture of being gauche.

But if anything, John Hamish Watson was an amicable chap who took being wrong very graciously, so he nodded a smile and replied, “I’ve got to say their price makes a convincing case for it.”

She bemused him more by throwing her head back and barking out a laugh.  Her throat could not _possibly_ store such a formidable sound.  “A very convincing case, I agree.  The guy you saw leave from over there,” she made a vague gesture towards the space next to her, where her companion was sitting before, “only drinks PBR.”

John had given up all endeavours to figure this woman out—it was a failed exertion, and this was why Sherlock Holmes was the only consulting detective in the world.  “What’s wrong with PBR?” he asked, not even knowing what this PBR was.

“I just can’t begin to fathom why he only drinks _Blue Ribbon_ of all things,” she said with a fond exasperation, “I suppose it’s the easier alternative to reading _The Pale King_ to hipster-dom.”

John found that if nothing, he could empathize with her fond exasperation very, very well.  In fact, it was his chief emotion concerning Sherlock.  Beyond that of admiration, pride, and infinite gratitude, of course.

She gave a sweeping glance at the wool scarf at his neck (he had grabbed Sherlock’s on the way out), and puffed out a horrified little gasp, “Say, you’re not one of _those_ , are you?”

“One of what?” he asked both irritated and tired, fully aware of the answer.

He was waiting for it—the _confirmed_ bachelor, the _live-in_ colleague; even apart, Sherlock’s shadow somehow eclipsed him.  He was waiting for her dawning theory of him being a poof.  Inevitable, really—even the receptionist at the clinic somehow got it into her pretty head.  Either that or the horror stories that Sarah told, but he would like to think that Sarah was above all that water-cooler gossip of their attempt at a non-professional relationship.

“One of them damned hipsters, of course.  You’ve a cheeky wool scarf.  Although you don’t don horn-rimmed glasses.  Well,” she continued, “at least your taste in beer is mildly redeeming.  And it’s a rather decent scarf.”

Ah, he might have been too sensitive about the whole bachelor thing.  Those tabloids were really getting to him.  Nope, he should never be in the deducing business, John decided there and then.  “No, no, this is my roommate’s.”

“The perks of rooming with hipsters—always a handy scarf, and cigarettes if you’re good at bumming.  They always play up their addiction to nicotine to play up their unconventional spirit.”

“He’s not exactly a hipster, as just,” he searched momentarily for the right word, “eccentric,” he decided finally.

Immediately she leaned forward toward him, eyes ablaze, “Eccentric?  Byronic hero eccentric or Henry Jekyll eccentric?  Be warned, if you say Silas Marner recluse eccentric, I’ll be tempted to punch your face.”

Her abrupt fervor threw John off for a moment, so he cleared his throat and summarized, “Just a strange bloke—likes to solve puzzles, plays violin at odd hours, doesn’t eat or sleep most days, invented his own job.”  Ah, there it was, the familiar glow of pride whenever he talked about Sherlock.

“I do enjoy puzzles,” the woman said, catching on the least important bit.

The wistfulness in her voice made John momentarily wonder if he had missed some calamity that had wiped out humanity’s access to Sunday crosswords.  Then he found his voice and introduced himself, “I don’t think I’ve made a proper introduction, I’m John, John Watson.”

Instead of offering her name in response, she gave an unattractive snort, “Proper introductions be damned!  That’s all we get in banking, you know, and I’m sick to the _marrow_ of it.  No one ever says anything important anyway.”  She sipped her drink and seemed to consider the rudeness of her previous words, and finding it too much, added: “In any case, hello John.”

John wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be offended.  He decided against it on account of the slight purr she injected into his name, and continued with the casual, mundane introduction, “I work in the clinic across the street.” A beat, “retired army doctor from Afghanistan,” he added—the war hero bit always got the birds.

“Oh Yeezus, that sad little clinic over there?” she laughed good-naturedly, “But all clinics are kind of sad, aren’t they?  It’s the disinfectant—kills your five senses.”

“And most of the germs,” he quibbled.

“Germs, dirt—a handful of dust.”

He blinked at her.

“Never mind, bit morbid,” she took the rest of her drink in one, long gulp, “I think I’ll have another pint as well.  You want to make it a pitcher?”

He thought about Mike and quickly said, “Sure, why not.”

As she waved to the bartender, smiling her broad smile, he asked, “So what is it that you do?”

“Me?” she seemed genuinely surprised at his inquiry, “Oh I work by Christchurch Greyfriars Garden around the corner.  One of those fanged, vampiric bankers without a soul, you know.”

John blinked again.  “You don’t seem soulless—at least, soulless people don’t allude to Evelyn Waugh.”

“A pitcher of Guinness, on tab, thanks” she informed the bartender before turning back to him and smiled again, but this time even broader and the light of the smile burrowing all the way into the very core of her pupil and flushing her cheeks as well.  “Oh!  So you _did_ get the reference!  Oh I haven’t talked to a person who’s even _heard_ of Waugh in _ages_!”

“Illiterate crowd much?” he made out before he realized how rude he sounded.  He really wasn’t on top of his game tonight, “God, sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s alright.  They’re not so much illiterate as they just don’t bloody care.  Although on a bad day I do call them that.  You’re a right Renaissance man though.”

“Oh no,” John could feel the back of his ears sting again, “I read him for school.  A-levels.”

“That’s the British high school to college ordeal, right?  Brother in arms to the useless SATs in the States.”

Ah, that’s why her accent was so American—she _was_ American.  “Right, I think so.  Real bothersome.”  He poured both of them a pint from the pitcher and was once again disappointed at the watery taste.  He really ought to be used to it by now.  “So you like stout?” he began conversationally.

“I guess you could say that.  It’s an exciting time to be drinking beer in London, isn’t it,” she drawled in an exaggeratedly bored voice, “Only _seven_ breweries still functioning in London back in 2006, after decades and decades of decay, but the scenery’s changing up again, bit of an explosion, if you will.”

Explosions of beer were good, good—significantly better than explosions from Moriarty.  John didn’t know how to treat her sarcasm, so he just tried earnestness.  “You’re like a tour guide.  I lived here before I shipped off to Afghanistan and I couldn’t even tell you how many breweries there were.”

She made a noncommittal humming sound.

Again, the distinct lack of interest or even polite inquiry about Afghanistan.  John was a little peeved—it was by far the easiest and most reliable of his pickup techniques.  “So did you memorize the _London A to Z_?”

She scoffed, “Way more important things to remember than stuff you can look up on the interweb in half a minute.  No, no, I had to educate myself with the London beer scene for a recent deal.”

“Are you in the brewing business then?”  Fascinating, he’d never actually met anybody who made the piss drinks that he bought!  “So uh, you buy beer breweries or something, your bank?”

Another little laugh, slightly sadder but more amicable, “I’m in capital markets, not private equity.”

John tried to search his lesser ‘mind palace’, and failed to find anything relevant to what she just said.

“Oh sorry,” she smiled without an ounce of apologetic emotion, “Haven’t talked to anyone outside of the team for so long.  I’m in convertible offerings, mostly just valuating convertible bonds and diagram their payoffs.”  She paused, and then laughed at herself, “That didn’t make any sense to you, does it?”

John shook his head.

“Well it’s actually really simple, just take the bond components’ equity and credit risks, and plug them in the model.  Sometimes you convert it to see what the value would be if it were in debt or equity form.  Anybody can do it, we just make it sound woozy to make us feel smarter.”

“I assure you, doctors list off the bones and nerves they can name for that very same purpose.”

She threw her head back and laughed again.  John was glad that he had the right response to that moment of self-deprecation; he decided that he liked her laugh.  “Oh doesn’t everybody want to feel like they’re smarter than everybody else?  We’re all the same.”

“Yes”, John agreed, except for the extraordinary, self-branded high functioning sociopath that he lived with.  He felt smug in this knowledge.  “What’s that got to do with beer?”

“Clients like their fucking beer and wine,” she made a face, “And so I’ve to know that the Nightwatchman is a classic bitter that’s lightly roasted and malty with fluffy head—that’s what she said—and that Pinot Noir is not tannic, with black cherry aromas and pronounced spiciness, and great with mushroom dishes.  We’re all pretentious like that.”

“Well you’re not a bad sort,” he complimented her before really thinking it through.  She was abrasive.  He kind of liked that.

“Thanks, I do try,” she said as she picked up a pork crackling, “Oh is this pork rinds?  Oh sweet virgin Goldie I love those!”  She chuckled, as if she said something funny, but John didn’t quite pick it up.  “Hmmm,” she sighed, “bacon-y, I’m liking this place more and more.”

The Old Bell’s pork cracklings _were_ very good, although not for everybody.  “Did you just come here recently?”  Her accent hasn’t been washed away too much.

“Half a year, I was in New York before.  Best city in the world to develop claustrophobia.”

“Why made you move?”

“Well, the only opening for equity capital markets was the London office, so I jumped, of course.  I wanted better hours.  Turns out convertible team is quite like typical banking, so I might actually get into equity origination or even syndication.  They only do like what, eleven hours a day, the lucky bastards.”

“Eleven hours,” he deadpanned, caught between incredulity and amazement; he could _barely_ bear his own nine-to-five.

“Yeah, on average.  Forever on call though; never know when you’ll need to haul your ass in.”

John smiled a secret smile—he knew that feeling, but his vocation was one that rushed his blood and gave him purpose in life.  He was sad for this woman, who had the opposite.

“Oh look at me, whining like I’m a teenager again.  It does bring youth back like nothing else, though.  How’s your work?  You enjoy being a doctor?  You’re not a surgeon, I don’t think, your hands were shaking when you were sitting alone over there.  Not a pediatrician either; children would cry looking at your frown lines.”

John felt like he should be flattered that she had noticed him before he came over, but all of the things to notice, the tremor in his left hand, really?  Just his luck.  “It only shakes occasionally.  I do very well under pressure.”

“Oh PTSD, of course, you’re definitely a high-functioning ex-military man.  My roommate back in college made me watch all these god-awful documentaries with her,” she grimaced, “And let me tell you I thought I was pretty fucked up.”

He let out a laugh.  It was nice to have somebody be so blunt about it, completely insensitive and borderline rude.  God he hated pity, even if it worked in his favor when chatting up girls.  Also his threshold for being offended kept rising and rising the longer he lived at 221B Baker Street.

“Not that PTSD is _trivial_ , you know, but everything should be laughed at,” she shrugged, and it was almost a justification for her insensitivity.

Or perhaps it came with being a banker, John thought.  “Laughing about it is certainly better than some of the alternatives.”

“I read this book once, about how this advertising agency’s project was to make an ad that would made breast cancer patients laugh about breast cancer.”

“That seems like a tall order.”

“Damned impossible order, that’s what.  Of course they failed.”

“Suppose the author couldn’t come up with anything that fitted the bill.”

“Touché.”

In the natural lull of conversation, they both took a long gulp of beer.

“So uh, you _are_ a surgeon?” she started again.

“Surgical houseman—they call it something else now, but I can’t remember.  I do clinic work, mostly walk-in patients.  I was actually trained at Barts—that’s why I was an army doctor—but most people don’t come into the clinic with gunshot wounds or gashing bleeding messes.”

“Yeah, life never gets interesting enough for bleeding messes.”

“You’d be surprised,” he chuckled, thinking about their last homicide.

“Really?” Her eyes lit up, unusually interested in such a gory, macabre image.  “I sense an interesting story?”

“Very!  Our last case involved this serial killer who killed women and took a body part each time to assemble a whole person in an attempt to resurrect his old sweetheart.”

Her eyes grew wider than a saucer, and John was momentarily afraid that he had scared her off.  He didn’t think he had even talked about the consulting detective bit to her yet, so he must have come off as a bit of a nutter too.  Great.  Thanks Sherlock, ruining yet another date, before it even got to be a date.

“Ooh, the _Frankenstein Killer_!” her tone betrayed no fear though, and in fact, she sounded as excited as Sherlock was when presented with a serial killer.

“That’s what sensational news called him, yes,” John nodded, relieved that she seemed far more intrigued than horrified.  He must have forgotten telling her about Sherlock, he thought as he polished the bottom of his third beer.

“So what happened?  How did you figure it out?”  She was leaning forward in her seat and John was struck by how liquid and bright her eyes were.

“Well, Sherlock, my flatmate, noticed at the crime scene that this pair of skid marks that looked more like the kind of moving trolley that—” But before he could get into telling the story, Mike Stamford came bustling in.

John waved to Mike, and Mike immediately came over.

“Didn’t know you were bringing a lady friend,” Mike said good-naturedly, “Would have brought the missus then.”  John liked Mike, really he did; it was just that Mike tended to miss social cues, despite his good nature.

“We’re practically still strangers,” the so-called lady friend smiled at Mike, less wide than the one she gave him when he came around, but definitely more deliberate and coy.

John was briefly annoyed that she gave Mike that smile and not him, but quickly realized that he couldn’t really compare himself to Mike, else he’d completely lose his mind.  Besides, Mike was happily married, and his ring shined with good care and frequent polishing.

Mike pulled out the chair next to John very naturally and sat down, beaming and not at all picking up on the slight glare that John was directing to him.  “So, horrid day, eh?  So much haze!”

John really, really didn’t care about the weather.

“Absolutely _horrid_ ,” she said emphatically, and John wondered if he was reading too much into her cheeky grin, or was she actually sharing an inside joke with him about how horrid Mike’s entrance timing was.

“So, how’s the clinic been?” Mike asked with his high-pitched laughter, “Oh John here is a _doctor_ , did you know that?”

John wanted to slink away in a corner—Mike was not being the good wingman that he thought he was.

“Yes, we might have exchanged professions some time before you came in,” she continued with her barely concealed sauciness.

John wanted to applaud her ruthlessness, but concluded that it might be a downward spiral for Sherlock if he encouraged rudeness.  “Good, the clinic’s been good; how’s teaching at Bart’s?”

Mike gave a small grimace, “Same as always, insufferably bright and innocent youths.”

“Youth is inherently insufferable because,” she drawled, “one never knows what to do with it until the mid-life crisis.  John here was telling a story before you came in though, shall we let him finish?”

“Oh, of course, of course,” Mike agreed easily.

“Right.  So,” he cleared his throat and continued, “So Sherlock noticed,” here he saw Mike chuckle to himself, “Noticed that the skid marks were actually wheel marks, too close together for a suitcase though.  We didn’t figure out until later that it was from the sort of two-wheeled cart that old people use to carry heavy groceries home.  At the time, he—”

Her Blackberry vibrated violently.

“Sorry,” she apologized quickly, and pulled up the phone.  “Hello?  Uh-huh.  _Fuck_ , just _now_?  Okay, okay, of _course_ I’ll be there, but make _Jonathan_ call Sven, I don’t want to be the one doing it two nights in a row.  Alright, see you.”  She hung up and gave a rueful smile, “Sorry, got to run, fire drill.”

“No problem,” John said despite a small disappointment pooling in his stomach, “Let me get that then,” he shifted left to reach for his wallet.

“No it’s alright,” she flipped her hand at him, “It’s on company tab.  Yes we have a company tab.  If your clinic needs going public, think of us, ja?”  She winked.  “And here,” she reached for her own plaid wallet and pulled out a card, “Call me to explain that gory mess of body parts, please, I’m _literally_ dying to know!”

John took her business card as she walked out, heels clicking the slightly sticky floor of The Old Bell quicker than the average woman in heels.  He looked at the card in his hands—tastefully cream colored, heavy paper, her name printed in neat, professional blocks: “Marigold Morstan, CFA,” he read.

And put it in his pocket and promptly forgot about it when a case came up the next day.


	2. What Wild Voyage

**Part II**

**What Wild Voyage**

_Laistrygonians and Cyclops,_  
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them  
unless you bring them along inside your soul,  
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

It took a particularly difficult Sherlock during a particularly hard case before John threw his hands into his pockets in exasperation, and almost cut his fingers against the rigid edge of a business card.  He took it out, stared at his scratchy handwriting saying ‘pub’, and in exactly thirteen long seconds made a decision to snitch his phone out of Sherlock’s grasp.

Sherlock gave some indignant grunt that John chose to artfully ignore before letting his laptop be snatched away by the sulking genius.  He put in the numbers very carefully, checking twice to see that no wayward thumb had made a fool out of him.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end sounded vaguely bemused, with the slightest tinge of impatience masked by politeness.

“Hullo,” he responded, thinking perhaps that he was made a fool after all.  “Marigold?  Marigold Morstan?”

“Yes, this is she.  Who am I speaking to?”  There was a faint curse, and the sound of furious typing; a yell in the background, something hitting something else, and a retort yelling back.  This was not how John envisioned the floors of a bank to be like—it sounded so much more informal than the time they went to Shad Sanderson with Sebastian Wilkes.

“This is John,” there was no faint sound of recognition, so he went on, “From Old Bell’s, John Watson.”

“Of course, I remember, hi,” she responded.  She was probably lying, but John hoped that he didn’t concoct the warmth washing over her voice.

“Is this a bad time?” he asked and silently pleaded that it wasn’t, looking over his shoulder at Sherlock’s arm raised and aiming at the wall again.  Else he might have to go to the tap dancing class with Mrs. Hudson.

“It depends,” she answered, “on why you called.”

_Bang_.  John didn’t have to turn his head to know that Sherlock’s finger tightened on the trigger.

“Was that…either you have a remarkable sound system for movies, or that was an actual _gun_ shot?”

“The latter, unfortunately,” John answered, and feeling lucky, he tried, “I was actually wondering if you wanted to—”

“Where _are_ you?” she interrupted him.

“Home, don’t mind the shot, that’s just Sherlock, my flatmate, er, thinking.”  He cleared his throat, “But as I was saying, when you have the time, I’d like to finish the story over a drink or—”

John was fated to never ask her out, because at that precise moment, Sherlock suddenly leap up from the couch, caught up in his eureka moment, and yelled out, “The _wax_ , John, the _wax_!” and dashed out madly.

His sighed carried over as static into the phone.  “Sorry,” he apologized very sincerely, although no doubt the sincerity would not carry over nearly as well as his puff of breath.  “I think he just got a lead.”

“A lead?”

“To this case, I’ve to go—”

“You can’t just _leave_!  Where are you going?  I’m coming along!” the voice on the other end of the phone whispered excitedly.  Then as an afterthought, “can I?”

“Can you?”  John was surprised by her enthusiasm—she was clearly busy a moment ago.

“Hold on,” then her voice came through muffled but fervent, “Dan, could you cover for me?  I’ve got Jonathan on the Caesar, and Sven on Hierophant.  Thanks; I’ll even wash the damn dishes for you!”  And clarity again, when she removed her hand, still whispering and even more fervently, “I’ll be there ASAP—or as quickly as a taxi will take me.”

“It would be dangerous,” he wasn’t sure if she understood the situation.

“Address?” she ignored his warning.

The door opened again to show Sherlock frowning and his eyes mad and glistening like diamonds under showcase lights, “What are you _waiting for_ , there’s a killer to be caught!”  It was rare for Sherlock to double back just to make sure that he was coming, so John knew that some sort of bodily violence would probably ensue.

John hesitated, his morality battling, but then quickly said: “The Peckham Rye train station”.  He didn’t wait to hear her reply.

**-.-.-**

As always, Sherlock was right about the crime part, and John was right about the violence part.  The mob was expecting them when they got there, and a heavy fight ensued.

It turned out that suspect was a member of the band of young men who wanted to replicate the Original Brooklyn Youths, and his clique of course came to back their member.  As physically fit as John was, he was no match for a group of street boys, and he was soon subdued after Sherlock was knocked unconscious to the ground.

When he came to, John found himself lying on the train tracks, hands and feet bound by sailor’s knots and his legs tied to the tracks.  He couldn’t help but giggle a little.  This was like a textbook story of an investigation gone wrong.  It failed to seem real.  Cartoon violence.  Except he was beginning to lose feeling in his legs.  He giggled again.  Damned adrenaline.  “So explain to me,” he said amid giggles to Sherlock, who was tied up in the same manner beside him, “how did you solve the case?”

“John,” Sherlock answered gravely, “we’re tied to _train_ tracks, and I know for a fact that the Four train to Highbury is due in exactly fourteen minutes.”

“Well, it’s not like we have anything else to do, have we?”

Sherlock found that very reasonable, so he explained: “I knew that I saw the peculiar type of wax before, but it wasn’t until tonight that I remembered that it was at—”

“From the _beginning_ , Sherlock,” John interrupted him, “So that I could follow, instead of you just yabbering on.”

“You _are_ in a foul mood.  Why I would have never pegged you for the type to be against being tied up.”

“It’s the wrong reason to be roped up, that’s what.”

“I always supposed that you were rather bitter about not receiving anything from The Woman.”

“ _Sherlock_ , the case.”

“Oh right, yes.  Well even somebody as daft as you can see, that the footsteps that the woman kept hearing at night were nothing but the echoes from the particular architectural domes in the hallway.”

“Yes,” well John had thought it was echoes of some sort, which was close enough.

“Then you ought to have realized that it came from the passage between the walls.”

“The passage?”

“One of the rooms was not perfectly symmetrical, but in fact was shorter on one side by two feet.  The house was built immediately after the Second World War, and the owner must have been paranoid and put in a secret escape route.  Tracing the way the draft flows through the room, it was easy to see that some man must have snuck in through the back of the house.   Now the question remained, what was the man looking for?”

John hoped the question was rhetorical, because he certainly did not have the answer.

“Tsk,” Sherlock made a tut in disappointment and went on, “Then it became clear to me that since the husband was a frequent of the pub right by their house, that the passage-rat must have picked up information there.  Given the husband’s usual taciturn nature, he had to be smashed and yet conscious enough to perhaps brag about something.”

“ _That_ ’s why you got me royally sloshed at that pub?”

“Yes.  It is usually helpful to retrace a dead man’s last steps.  Which leads us to the wax.  There were candles in the dining room of the house.”

“Chandeliers frequently have candles, yes.”

“But those were a special kind of candles, John.  The wax that composed those candles had a thinning agent that is only found in made-to-order candles from the factory in Surrey.”

“…Okay,” John encouraged, “and?”

“The burden of the average mind.  Don’t you see?  Remember last month when Kent called us over to have me look into their lost sapphire?”

“The Earl of Kent’s mansion?”

“Please, I would hardly call that place a _mansion_.”

John gave him a stern look.

“At _most_ a manor.  But their chandeliers carried the same candles.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , our murdered victim was the loyal employee of Kent, who brought back pieces of the Kent estate with him, beginning with candles, and ending with the sapphire crown.”

“Wait, wait,” John stopped him, “How does that lead us _here_ though?”

“Clearly he had told somebody about it while pissed, and that made its way to the wrong crowd.  The gang that deals with most of the precious stones trafficking in this area meets here on a regular basis, and whoever stole it would need to dispose of it before the season ends.”

“But it wasn’t just a petty thief turned situational murderer.”

“No, I hadn’t expected for the actual gang to be involved in that episode,” Sherlock admitted with some difficulty.

“I see,” John said, and while his tone was not accusatory, Sherlock still blew up.

“It was a perfect plan!” Sherlock cried out in outrage, “But _somebody_ had leaked the information of our whereabouts.”

“Shouldn’t your genius mind have taken that into consideration?” John replied snappily.

“I hardly took into consideration your utter incompetence.”

“ _My_ incompetence?”

“Even you can’t be daft enough to not realize _now_ ,” Sherlock sounded impatient and mean—that was, more so than usual, “That the woman you were trying to bed was fishing for information and therefore endangered us.  Or even if she wasn’t the leak, then you telling her was the leak, since that was the only instance in which my plan was exposed.”

John spluttered with indignation: “Oh no you don’t get to pin this on me; your failure is your failure.”

“Don’t forget that you’re tied up here with me as well.”

“I frequently fail, I’m used to it.”

“Don’t be snide, John,” Sherlock drawled, “It’s a terrible defensive tactic, and never draws the attention away.”

“You are right, it is my failure.  It’s always my failure, isn’t it?”

Sherlock, did not pick up on the theatrics and continued leisurely: “It was my failure to not have kept a closer eye on you.  I had overestimated my intellectually superior influence on you, and had expected you to exercise a base level of logic.”

John returned to spluttering.

At this point, the guy in charge of guarding them—whom they have all but forgotten—got too upset over being both ignored and forced to listen to a domestic, that he came up to the tied up men with a piece of thick iron tube.  “Shut your mouths or I’ll clobber you so hard that you wish the train was coming right _now_.”

“The train _is_ coming right now, what you mean is that it is _here_ now, although that wouldn’t bode well for you, whose physical position is two and half feet closer to where the—”

“Sherlock,” John warned.

“—Four train is about to come, at roughly the permissible speed of one-hundred-twenty-five miles per hour—”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John warned again, seeing the growing redness of their guardian’s face and the tightness in his hold of the metal tube.

“—Which is something that you should know, a simple mathematical fact like this should not tire even the capacity of your puny brain—”

“Why you little—” the burly man began as he swung the tube upwards to strike Sherlock.

It was at that moment that for dramatic purposes, that Marigold entered stage left, dressed impeccably in a blue peplum dress with a dainty little quilted purse, a revolver in one hand and a phone in the other.   She pointed the barrel at the man, eyes only flickering to John and Sherlock very quickly, and enunciated: “I have waited my entire life to say this exact phrase: ‘Drop your weapon or I will shoot!’”

She announced it loudly and clearly, and if John was not used to picking out the newbies on the field, he would have missed the telltale tremble in her left hand.  Also the fact that the revolver had the dull glow of _plastic_.  As it was, he just prayed that the mob guard wasn’t as good as him.

The burly man laughed and took a step towards her.  Sherlock took this opportunity to extend the length of his legs and trip the man.  Marigold swiftly ran over, hit him on the back of his head with a rock, and then stabbed him with her … phone.

Her phone turned out to be a Taser.  Well that was certainly one way to end this near-death-experience, John mused rather composedly.  He would say he was in shock, except these scenarios happened with such regular frequency that all he felt was the vague, surging euphoria of defying death yet another time.  Although to be fair, this time was different from the normal ones—if nearly dying could be have a ‘normal’.

Marigold did not seem to recognize the strangeness of her phone-Taser though.  She looked down at him like a kid expecting praise and proudly declared, “Krav Maga is super effective; Bad Guy fainted.”  Then she proceeded to undo the ropes that bound them.

“Was that really?” John couldn’t think of anything more important to say but confirm that the coolest woman just saved his ass.  “Krav Maga, I mean.”

Except she gave him a look with raised eyebrows, “I swung a rock.”

“So it wasn’t…”

“Not quite,” she said in the most theatrically sarcastic tone.

“Oh.”

“Krav Maga would have been much more efficient, aiming at the plexus, or at least the groin,” Sherlock grumbled as both John and Marigold knelt to untie him.  “You shame your military training.”

She scoffed as Sherlock came free, “Efficient enough to save your ass.  I can practice the groin move on you if you prefer.”

“Enough idle chitchat,” Sherlock leapt onto his feet, flinging the ropes away.  “Much to do,” he yelled gleefully, before jogging off.

“Where is he going?” Marigold asked.

John shrugged.  Like he had any idea, ever, about Sherlock’s plans.  “I usually just try to keep up.”

“Well,” she grinned, “Then we better get going.”

John looked her quizzically: she was a little on the short side without her heels and a little stiff in her way of standing, as if she wasn’t quite sure why she was so close to the ground.  The corner of her eyeliner or eye shadow—some sort of makeup—was smudged a little, and make her eyes look rounder and softer than he remembered.  Her hair was perhaps more mussed than he had seen before, although still a bit flat.  She did _not_ look like the type to give chase to criminals.  Then again, she didn’t look like she’d speak so … well, more like a military cadet than a lady, for sure.

“You sure?” he asked, just to be safe.

“Because when I say I want something I actually mean I don’t know,” her tone was accusatory but she was smiling prettily, so he shrugged and gestured for them to jog after Sherlock.

After an acceptable pause as they ran along the train tracks, John asked casually, “Was that your boyfriend on the phone?”

“Who?”

“Dan, you were talking to him when we were on the phone.”  If he sounded out of breath, then it was definitely because of the running part.

She began laughing, but quickly stopped as it took too much air, “Over my dead body!  Dan’s my roommate.  I’ve known him since college; we transferred here together.”

“Roommate?”

“How the hell do you think I can afford Covent Garden?”

“Covent Garden?  Your bank pays you well.”

“Not nearly—never.  But, you know, Marylebone isn’t half bad either.”

“Special rate from Mrs. Hudson, for an old favor that Sherlock did.  Otherwise you’ve got to tan my skin to get half a month’s rent.”

“What, got her out of a tight spot?”

“Actually,” he grinned, remembering his own misguided assumption when he first heard of this favor, “Made sure her husband got his head chopped.”

“How fascinatingly feminist!” she exclaimed, “How much do the other suckers pay?”

“There’s just a basement, and nobody would have it.  Dreadful mold.”

“Well I’d never convince Dan to move from Covent; he adores the gaudiness.  Except maybe if we were to move to SoHo, but that’s decidedly _worse_.”

“You know London real estate expenses well.”

“Oh,” she grinned cheekily, “I pick up on what’s expensive _very_ quickly.”

“High maintenance,” he joked.

“Some things are worth the effort,” she continued her cheekiness, but the attitude was lost in her breathiness.

John could feel warmth creeping behind his ears: she had sounded so breathy that her words were suggestive instead of saucy.  A slightly awkward but not yet uncomfortable silence followed.

By the time they caught up to Sherlock, he was standing over a line of handcuffed rudeboy-wannabes.  As much as Sherlock scorned the police department’s intellect levels, it had to be said that when it came to physically fighting criminals, Lestrade’s team had the advantage of numbers.  And firearm, John lamented as he thought of the loss of his Browning.  It must be with one of the boys, and would undoubtedly end up in police evidence.  He would have to get drinks with Lestrade soon—just hammered enough to get his 9-mil back, and have Lestrade not remember the details of his request.

Sherlock was in a good mood, despite needing the assistance of Lestrade on this case—even genius was not above petty vengeance, as he smirked when Lestrade shoved the suspect into one of the police cars.  In satisfaction, he turned around to see John and Marigold approaching.  “Ah,” he said, and John was immediately worried.  Sherlock in a good mood was almost as volatile as Sherlock in a bad mood.  If he had any luck, Sherlock would go and say something nasty about Marigold’s mouth—she had Molly’s mouth, and it sort of thinned when she smiled and Sherlock was so unnecessarily focused on lips.  John narrowed his eyes and tried to prevent Sherlock from being rude, but when had that ever worked?

“Well this is interesting,” Sherlock drawled out in that _tone_ of his.  “It would appear that you were not the one who leaked our whereabouts after all.  Why are you here then?  Why should this involve you, a businesswoman?” Sherlock began deducing.  It would seem that he was caught on a roll of explanation and proving his unmatched intelligence.

Well that was easy enough, John thought, given that Marigold was in bloody business formal.  _Just leave it at that_ , John pleaded silently.  Some god out there laughed.

Sherlock took a step closer and began again: “You’re single, never married, works in an office facing west with a very large window, wants to buy a cat but your roommate won’t let you, he’s male by the way,” he looked at John to see no reaction there, went on, “You just moved here, but why, you obviously have a good career track … Oh!” his eyes widened by the slightest fraction, “You moved to avoid sexual harassment from your old boss, of _course_!”

John sighed, “Sherlock!”  _Bit Not Good_ , he signalled, “You can’t just—”

“Apparently he can,” Marigold quibbled, “but that’s just like, your opinion, man.”

John groaned and Sherlock looked confused.  “Is this some sort of useless cultural information that I have discarded?”

“Probably,” John admitted, “like the solar system.”

Sherlock frowned and said petulantly, “I figured that out!”

“Eventually,” John said, masking his exasperated pride.

“Well you can’t just _say_ it and not walk the common folks through it,” Marigold piped.

John’s eyebrows shot up.  Well there was no harm in it if she was interested—in fact, it was _good_ if she was interested.

Sherlock gave her a small hum in equal parts of pride and disdain before catching John’s eyes.  He then gave a long, exasperating sigh, as if saying ‘ _Must I?_ ’

John gave him a significant look, as if replying, ‘ _Yes, Sherlock._ ’

“Fine,” Sherlock huffed, and turned his focus onto Marigold.  “You’re nervous—more than nervous, slightly anxious.  You’re clutching you handbag but not holding it closer to you; usually when women are threatened they immediately bring their handbags closer, so it’s not the fear of safety, but it is a guttural reaction, so you have some sort of safety guarantee inside your bag.  You don’t have a pistol—that one you used was so obviously a fake that even the idiot guard could tell in dim lighting.  You wouldn’t have enough credit for one since you just moved from America—your accent, is it Boston urban?  General American dialect with the vowels drawn out, but I haven’t touched up on my linguistics in a while.  So only a Taser would fit inside.  But it’s clear that you just came from work, and it’s not John you’re worried about, you’ve already ran half of the city with him, so it’s for _work_ that you’re preparing the weapon for.  You travel everywhere by cab so that’s not the concern, since the Taser wouldn’t even reach the driver, so it must be your actual work environment.  Given that you just moved here, it is unlikely that the problem originated here—so the reason of your move then, but what could result in such a drastic change?  Somebody above you, your boss, whom you have no control over, and a man, as statistically speaking, there are barely any females above your station, and you put that together, _obviously_ it’s sexual harassment.  Bit of an overreaction, really, but it was good that you broke up with your previous boyfriend, he proposed, and if you’re already bored of him in a barely-there relationship, imagine the boredom marriage would bring.”

He turned his eyes to John, as if expecting praise.

John fought hard to not give him it.

Marigold, however, had no such inhibitions.  “Huh, I probed you to ever write my biography—too candid a view.  And really, how did you even know that my ex proposed?”

“Your finger—there is a small band of white skin.  Not long enough to be serious, but enough to make an impression.  You haven’t gone tanning or done anything to remove the discoloring, so the sight of it doesn’t bother you; only the party doing the leaving is not bothered by a reminder. “

“As good as the legends say,” Marigold complimented, and then turned to John, “How do you live with this fucker again?  He probably knows all your porn habits just from looking at the edge of your sock or something.”

Sherlock did that face where he managed to look both disdainful _and_ smug, “ _Please_ , I don’t have time for something as mundane as _porn_.”

John ignored that and told Marigold: “Patience is something you learn in the military.”

“A monument of Patience, you are, sitting with your green and yellow melancholy.”

John smiled, that had to be a quote from something—he didn’t know, so he tried to make the best of the situation: “Who can be melancholic with you around?”

“Oh aren’t you the charmer?” she glanced at him through the corner of her eyes, smiling.  “I’m sure you get dates out of girls like a cheap magic trick.”

“Well,” John said with a smudge of pride (alright, bit more than a _smudge_ ), “the date is the easy part.  Although, usually it’s the soldier bit, and occasionally the gay and alcoholic sister with a particularly tough play after a few too many drinks.  Not a mad chase through London after some criminal.”

She scoffed, “Military men are _common_ , and so are alcoholics and lesbians in this age; but _you_ are one special snowflake.”

John couldn’t quite figure out if she was being sarcastic or not.  She had a habit of saying everything as if it could be sarcastic.  So he asked instead: “Dinner on Friday?”

She pursed her lips, giving him a look that could be deciphered as ‘are you crazy’ in both the good and the bad way.  After a pause that was far too long, in John’s opinion, even for dramatic effect, she said, “I would only say yes on only one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

She grinned at him like she was mad, and John’s heart soared in hope.  “That if ever madness strikes again, you bring me.”

“Course,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant but he knew his face was breaking into a similar grin at the thought of another case.

“Well then, I have to sneak out of here before the police want me to testify.  The paperwork with the PR would literally bury me, and then I wouldn’t be able to get dinner,” she hitched her handbag higher on her shoulder as she left, “So adieu, my good gentlemen.”

“I’ll call you with the reservation,” John said after her.

“You better,” she responded without looking back.

Well that went surprisingly well, John thought to himself.  “You know Sherlock, you usually have more success botching my dates with your deductions.”

“Oh please,” Sherlock waved it off, “It was just the harmless basics.  You would have had to find that out if you were to date anyway.  You should thank me for quickening the process.”

“ _Thank_ you?  It’s more like my charm got through _despite_ you.”

“You can now bypass the get-to-know-you social stage before sexual intercourse,” Sherlock offered.

“ _Sherlock_!  Don’t put it so crudely!  Besides, you might have scared her off.”

Sherlock scoffed, “You got a date, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then no harm done.  Really John, you’re making such a fuss.”

“ _Me_ making a fuss?” he grunted in frustration.

“Yes.  Besides, it is obvious that she’s not into you.”

John rolled his eyes.  “She just agreed to a date.  _After_ being dragged into a case.  You know how much wheedling I had to do with Sarah to get her to go out after the Black Lotus fiasco?”

“Water-cooler pick-up lines, I presume,” Sherlock commented.

For a man emotionally challenged, Sherlock sure did have a good understanding of the dating game, John found himself thinking not for the first time.  “Point is, if she’s not _interested_ , she wouldn’t have agreed!”

“Oh John,” Sherlock rolled his eyes, talking as he always did when he felt like John was being abnormally obtuse, “She is a fairly attractive woman with a successful career in her early-thirties, why would she go for a man with a growing beer belly in an ugly sweater almost ten years her senior with PTSD?”

Well, when he put it like that… “Maybe we had a connection!”

“That’s thin even for you,” Sherlock scoffed so expertly, “Her interests so far have been shown to be crimes, by ditching her job and coming here, and my deduction, which _clearly_ impressed her.  So it’s an obvious and simple answer: she is _not_ interested in you, she’s interested in _me_.”

John gave himself a few seconds to make sure that he was hearing it correctly, before laughing, “ _You_?”

“Don’t sound so scandalized, John; there are people enamored with me, and even more enamored with the idea of genius.  Molly, the former, and all those fan mail that you sort through for me for the latter.  You should know.  In any case, you would have to tell her that _I_ ’m not interested, married to my work and all.  I trust you to figure out the delivery.”

And whoosh, Sherlock walked away, his coat flapping behind him in the night like a dark cape, leaving John to follow him once again.

 

 


	3. The Invention of Fate

**Part III**

**The Invention of Fate**

_Hope the voyage is a long one._  
May there be many a summer morning when,  
with what pleasure, what joy,  
you come into harbors seen for the first time;

The day of fate begun like any other:  alarm at 6:25am, bad singing of a song that was popular in his uni days in the shower, jumper number 5, bed to be made, and a quick breakfast.  Indeed, the day was on its way to transpire like any other, until he filled the kettle and John found himself looking at a sticky note on the burner, where Sherlock occasionally stuck notes (usually with stains of a questionable chemical smell) when he wanted to make sure that John didn’t miss them.

It made no sense at all.

John recognized the loopy zeros with the slight curl at the closing, and definitely the paper—since he took care of all the shopping, including for stationary—but what he didn’t understand was why it was in binary code, for the note was just filled with ones and zeros.  John put on the kettle, and as he waited patiently for the kettle to whistle, he pondered over the note and whether Sherlock expected for him to actually figure out what it meant.

The note said, just for the accuracy of this documentation: ‘01101101 01100001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100101 01110011’.

He typed it into his phone, but the only search results that came up were Google Books and idiots on Yahoo Answers.  He was sure that he missed a zero in there somewhere, but the sea of binary was making his head hurt, so he abandoned it in favor of making an extra strong cuppa.

Work was as menial and vaguely gratifying as always.  There was a bit of excitement when this one kid who refused to have his shot slipped by Sarah like a little eel and swam his way all throughout the clinic, even to the front desk, where the receptionist Ruby caught him with expert hands.  Apparently Ruby had a lot of siblings who all married early, and therefore had a lot of little nephews and nieces to practice on.  It would have never occurred to the rest of them that gossipy, restless Ruby would be the best with kids.

That was in the morning.  By lunch break, everything was back to normal, and James was once again talking about how being here was both a waste of talent and a waste of life, the corporate structure and bureaucracy making them vapid, meaningless individuals.  Everybody held these doubts on occasion, that their job was making them bad people, but James was the one who made a habit of talking about it during lunch.  Still, their group was small enough, and by nature xenophobic enough that they stuck to each other, bearing through the banal talks of gossip and existential crisis if they must.

“We’re overpaid and underappreciated,” Henry finished resolutely, biting through a mellow apple, with a piece of red skin stuck in between his teeth.

John thought that it was an alright sort of job—it certainly wasn’t changing the world, and none of them were going to afford their private island any time soon, but he was fine with that.  He knew Henry was fine with that as well, but John supposed that some people were just born for self-righteous talks like this.  (Also John for one wasn’t getting overpaid.)

So he said, “Things are alright,” then he added, to be safe, “at the national level.”

Henry laughed, but John could tell that it wasn’t a funny laugh.  “Them dumb bastards in the Big Brother program?  Load of bull, they’re even more brainless twerps than we are.”

Well, nobody could say that Mycroft was brainless, but John just shrugged and finished the last of his ham sandwich.  It was starting to get soggy anyway.

The rest of the hour block was filled with Henry’s cynical talk, and Grace defending their job, and their country if necessary.  Sarah sometimes broke in to play the devil’s advocate once in a while.  John didn’t bother to participate.

Everybody could be a cynic, really, the hard thing was to get through it all.  The trick to living out work life was just to be as nice as possible, say thank you at every available occasion, and smile when you didn’t feel like it.  It was general knowledge that every day was completely without meaning, perhaps ending a cold a day earlier than it would have naturally for a child, or assuring some man that no there were no parasitic tapeworms in his brain.  But there was no point in saying anything negative or ironic about their days, since they all shared them.  Those who could do greater things went on with greater things—the old people (well, Grace, really) liked to tell the story of a Peter Parker who went from their clinic to become the Head of Diagnostics at King’s.  Now, they had their reserves, not in the least because of a name like Peter Parker, but they liked listening to the story as much as Grace liked telling it.  It filled their smoke breaks with a vague, golden kind positivity, as if the realm of possibility just expanded itself.  Either that or the free doughnuts on Fridays.  But there weren’t ever enough doughnuts on Fridays, or they were all the wrong kinds.  The only good kind was the ones gone anyway.

They had a lot of stories, but Ruby was the one with the most of them.  Ruby liked talking about grotesque things.  She was the one who set up betting pools about if old Hank from the IT firm next door would die from recurrence in his bladder cancer.  For somebody who was supposed to greet people for a living, she sure was fascinated by them dying.  She frequently wandered down the hall, and stood by the door, knocking at the frame with her slender fingers, and it didn’t matter who it was, as long as the person didn’t have a patient.  She would ask, for formality’s sake, if they were busy, but before whoever the person was could answer, she would delve into some piece of gossip she picked up, sometimes going into too much detail about Hank’s urine control or lack thereof.

John was the said person at the end of his shift.  Ruby stood there, too much leg showing from under her dress than was appropriate for work, her voice droning on.  John toned her out, and instead gathered his belongings.   He knew that it wouldn’t deter or offend Ruby—if fact he doubted if Ruby actually could see him even, right now, carried away by her own voice.

“… and the next day Olivier wore _the same shirt_ , John, the _same shirt_.  What are you doing?”

“Oh I’m packing up for the day,” John replied casually.

“Oh,” Ruby seemed slightly put off, but soon cheered up and asked, “What do you think about it?”

“About what?”

“Olivier and Sarah, you great big oaf,” Ruby giggled.  She had an awful habit of calling people names, but she thought it made her contrary and cute.

“What Olivier?” John asked, a little bit intrigued now, but he still needed to pick up milk on the way home, and he had a _date_ tonight damn it, he needed some time to prepare.

“Olivier Owens, from that big corporate building around the corner.  He is _cute_ , how do you reckon that Sarah caught herself somebody like _that_?”

“As opposed to somebody like me?” John asked wryly.

“Oh gee!” Ruby’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth, “I didn’t mean it like _that_ you know!”

And the sad thing was that she didn’t, John knew.  “In any case, I really got to go.”

“Well, alright,” Ruby said disappointedly.

John smiled at her, said thanks see you tomorrow have a nice night, and then rushed out, only taking one appreciative backwards glance at her backside and smooth legs.  See, it was hardly a difficult task to get by in the office.

The market was harder, but mostly because he had wagered another war with the chip-and-pin machine.  John could swear that they were created just for the sake of making his life harder.

To make matters worse, he could hear the violin the moment he opened the building door, and while the music was beautiful, he groaned at the thought of Sherlock being home when he primed himself for the date.  It would be a feat if he got out the door at all, John thought as he climbed the stairs.

“Did you get the note?”  John was greeted by the back of Sherlock and this question upon entering their flat.

It took John only a moment to understand what he was talking about, surprisingly.  “The bit of nonsense with the ones and zeros?”

“It’s _binary_ code, John,” Sherlock said with a tone that indicated how much scorn he had for the human race.

“I know that it’s _binary_ ,” John fumbled with words, “But I still have absolutely no idea what it meant.”

“You have a smartphone,” Sherlock replied annoyed, “And while I don’t expect you to be competent enough to understand basic binary language, there are plenty of people out there who don’t have anything better to waste their life on.”

“Or I could just ask you,” John offered, “which I did, but you never replied my text.”  Sherlock responded with an extra flair in the notes, so John added hopefully, “So what did it mean?”

“Manatees.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Manatees,” Sherlock said over the music, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  “The case rested on manatees.  Very sensitive information, the killer would have been paranoid to kill over the discovery, which was why I left it in a code.”

John was worried; usually when Sherlock admitted to the presence of danger, he was either luring John away from a date or it was actually dangerous enough for him to warn John.  Neither case was pleasant.  “Kill, you say?  Should we, uh, should we ring up Greg then?  Since it might be dangerous.”

Sherlock ignored him and drew out the end of the song.

“I’ll call him right now?” John ignored the kettle that he had put on the moment he got home, and dug out his phone from his coat pocket.

Sherlock tried out two notes on his violin before he drawled, “No need, the man has been apprehended already.”

John quickly hung up before the call went through.  “I thought you said—”

“Danger,” Sherlock clucked, “is time-sensitive.  In this case the time was this morning, when I left the note.  Honestly, John.”  And Sherlock began Schubert’s _Standchen_.

Sherlock must be a really good mood, John thought as he went back to his business of tea, to play something so overused by the idiotic masses and sentimental.  Perhaps he could even sneak by the _entire_ date this time without Sherlock throwing a fit and dragging him back here to fetch, oh, a bag of pig’s blood.  And at least that was more than five meters away—the times when he was called back to turn on the telly!  John swore, Sherlock could be replaced by a demon, and he would hardly notice the bizarre behaviour or satanic sacrificial rituals.

But it was a beautiful evening when John finally stepped out of the building, blazer and tie freshly ironed, and his hair combed back, and he was determined to enjoy the night.

He could not help but feel that it was beautiful for him, for him only.  Despite being unusually grandiose and unpractical, it was still an uplifting notion, and John indulged in it.  He had never held any misconception that the universe was constructed around him, but it was lovely to entertain the thought for a second, outside of their apartment.  (Because inside, it was an irrefutable fact that the universe was constructed around Sherlock, an insular space in which nothing much else existed.)

He flagged down a cab, double checked in the rear mirror that the man did not look suspicious and had the telling oil stain down his neck that told of eating fast food while driving.  “Bedford Court,” he gave.

Marigold wasn’t there yet when he pulled up.

John checked his watch—ten minutes to seven, he was early by only a little bit, so he paid the cabby and waited inside the lobby of the apartment.  There was a slightly awkward exchange with the doorman, who asked him with polite suspicion if he could help him.  John explained that he was waiting for Marigold, and the man had a dawning look of empathizing understanding and let him be.

It took Marigold another twenty minutes to get down.  John had thought that a banker would be impeccably on time, but apparently, that stereotype was wrong as well.

“You look lovely,” he complimented, and it was true.

She was in a gorgeous yellow dress, ruffles cascading down her shoulder, meeting a sea of pleated silk that flared out at the bottom.  The hemline hit three inches above her knees, and was just the right length for a youthful classy look.  John was very glad that he put on his good suit.

“As do you,” she purred out, “and sorry for making you wait, the hair curler was a hot mess!”

John now noticed that her hair was curlier than he remembered, and it was a pleasing feeling to know that she had gone through the troubles of hot curlers for him.  Perhaps that was why she said that, but John decided to put down the Sherlock act for tonight.

“Shall we go then?” he asked, offering his arm, “Dinner awaits.”

“Of course,” she answered quickly, “I’m _starving_.”

“Have a good night, Mary,” the doorman called out as she took his arm.

“Thanks Noah,” she called back to him, waving her free hand at the doorman, “you too.”

“You know your doorman very well?” John asked, trying to start conversation, but wincing internally at how he must have sounded—jealous of her doorman, really, John?

“Oh yes, it’s always a good idea to make friends with the doorman.  We get back at such obscene hours that they need to hold dry cleaning for us.”  It seemed that Marigold didn’t think too much on his wording.  “It’s the same idea as making friends with your secretary.  I just gave Elsa, my secretary, a bloody good bottle of wine the other day.  The trick is, of course, to casually mention that I happened to remember how she said she liked reds.”  She waved her hand dismissively, “Not that she can tell the difference between a ten dollar Barefoot Sauvignon—surprisingly good, actually—and the two hundred Gaja Barbaresco, but there is a card conveniently nudged in there to tell her of the price tag and to talk about the ‘raspberry notes’ with her wine aficionado friends.”

As a kind person, John normally didn’t approve of condescension or the hint of meanness in her story, but this was a first date, and really she was kind of charming about it.  In the end he went with a very safe, albeit slightly sarcastic, “How considerate of you.”

She laughed softly, “Oh Elsa is a good secretary, in the sense that she doesn’t pay attention to the receipts so I can expense whatever the hell I want, but Noah the doorman is actually kind of nice to talk to, sometimes.  Mostly it’s just the desperation of talking to somebody who’s not from work.”

Work was a safe topic.  “How is it right now?”

“It’s actually not that busy—and the summer interns are coming in next month.  There’s also not a lot of equity offerings right now: bad for the company, but good for me, in a way.”  She wrinkled her nose adorably, “Although I guess I should get out of that mindset.  Most of my pay comes from vested stock bonuses now.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?  You hear in the news all these big, bad banker types with their massive bonuses that are only matched by their egos.”

Marigold gave a nice laugh again, “Oh I wish I was one of those Jamie Dimon types.  No, hedge funds are where the money’s at.  Our bonuses are tricky, because they’re always these testy stock options that can’t turn into cash for _years_ —wait, are we going to Coq d'Argent?” she asked in marvel.

“You know the place?” John asked.  She probably did, it was a very fashionable spot, for the financial people as well.  It was also the perfect weather to go outside on the terrace if she felt like it. 

“ _Hell_ yeah,” she said gleefully, “we’ve hosted a sell dinner here once, but that’s not an occasion when I could actually bloody _eat_.  Etiquette calls for nibbling like a squirrel and carry conversation.  How perfect!”

He was rather pleased with himself on his choice.  This was promising to go much better than the last time they saw each other.

The maître d'hôtel in a stuffy vest seated them by the window, and there was a brief discussion of the merits of the prix fixe menu versus the a la carte, during which John insisted that Marigold get whatever she wanted.  In the end they decided to go with the prix fixe, and John couldn’t tell if it was because Marigold was considerate of his wallet, or she honestly was excited for the prix-fixe-menu-only pithivier pastry pies.  Honestly, sometimes it was a little hard to tell when she was being genuine, but John adopted the ‘innocent before guilty’ approach, and settled for enjoying the curve of her smiles.

Dessert was a platter of tiramisu and a cup of crème brûlée.  They had decided that they would share, each of them indecisive between the two until Marigold declared that it only made sense for them to get both then.

(Sherlock had commented once on how he was attracted to bossy women.)

“I think the lady to the left is eyeing our desserts with considerable envy that only comes from a long and unsuccessful diet,” she whispered to him as soon as the waiter left them.

It took John a second to think to whose left this lady in question was, before catching the sight to his right in his peripheral vision.  While the way she said it was playful and the sotte voce flirtatious, John would not deny that the lady did indeed look quite green with envy.  The diet bit was just Marigold being her snarky self, since the lady looked like she was perpetually on a very successful diet.

“Well,” he replied in the same loud whisper, “then we have got to put on a great display of how delicious they are.”

“Oh I hardly need an incentive to enjoy sugar and carbs that will be my cardiac death.”

“You know,” John quickly scanned the table to his right, “her companion is rather pudgy, and look constipated as well.  Perhaps he’s the one who’s on the diet?”

Marigold raised her eyebrow and look at them as well, under the pretense that she was looking for their waiter, “Why indeed!  He has only a _salade verte_!  Oh poor thing,” she clucked, “If it’s one misery that I can commiserate with, it is being unable to eat good food when your face is shoved into it.”

“An uncomfortable situation, by any means,” he agreed.

“But what excellent insight you have,” Vine complimented, “on other people!”

Well, at least John _thought_ it was a compliment.  “Thanks, it comes from living with a consulting detective.”

“Oh dear, now I’m afraid that I’ve said more about myself than I would like to, just from, oh, my posture or something,” she joked.

Her posture probably did say a lot about her, John thought, but he decided that it was too early to say that, so he joked back, “You should be.”

“Simply terrified,” she nodded in pseudo somberness.  “I would believe anything you have to say about me, in any case.”

“Really?  Wouldn’t you be skeptical?”

“But everybody wants to be understood and described, whatever skepticism we have just melts away at any generalized comment on oh, how there is a secret shyness underneath our exteriors, and we are of a unusually sensitive disposition.  Especially if it is spoken from such a well-shaped mouth as yours.”

She was quite good at this, John noted.  But she also became bright-eyed when he started making deductions about the table next to them.  Then again, people liked gossip, even about strangers, and _every_ body liked it when the conversation was about themselves.

But before he could indulge her and go on observing other people, the waiter interrupted them.

“Anything else for you, coffee, tea?” he asked as he gathered the empty plates.

“Would you judge me terribly if I ordered an Irish coffee?” she looked at him with a smile.

“No, go ahead,” John said.

“Then an Irish coffee for me,” she said to the waiter, before turning back to him, “Coffee and whiskey, what else can you want after a good dinner?”

“Do you have a preference for the whiskey?” the waiter again interrupted.

“Oh, right.  Well I guess I’ll go with a blended then, do you carry Talisker?”

“Talisker 10 or storm?

“10 years, definitely.”

“Very good, ma’am,” the waiter turned to him, “And you sir?”

John debated whether a beer would be too gauche, and deciding, “The same for me.”

“Two Talisker Irish coffees,” the waiter finally retreated.

But of course, one drink as the after-dessert turned into numerous rounds, in which Marigold and John argued on the merits of gin-based and whisky-based drinks, finally both settling that egg-white drinks were the best, no matter the alcohol.  Marigold was a surprisingly weighty drinker, John found out, as his head spun a little and his thoughts took a second longer than they would have normally.

Just when he was about to suggest that they go to a more down-to-earth bar where they wouldn’t be judged for being inappropriately drunk at a highbrow French place, or even better, go back to her place for a quiet ambiance—just when he figured out how to phrase that correctly, without sounding like a creep, and evoking trust with his wide-boy-eyes and the honesty in his face—shite, _just_ when he was about to say something, his phone rang.

John had been ignoring most of the texts that Sherlock sent his way so far, only speed-typing a quick reply when Marigold was looking at her Blackberry—it was a surprisingly good combination, her work and his Sherlock.  But his phone vibrated persistently, and he looked down to see Sherlock calling him.

Sherlock never _called_.

“Oh no, I know that look.  Urgent?” Marigold asked, the hilarity in her voice bubbling down, as they both sobered up more or less.

John said, “Sorry, I got to take this.”

She waved her forgiveness, and John rose to go to the terrace to answer it.

“What is it, Sherlock?” he hurriedly said into the phone.

“Hullo, John dear,” the voice of Mrs. Hudson came from the phone, and John nearly had a heart attack, thinking— _oh my god, is he okay?  What happened?  WHERE IS SHERLOCK_ —before realizing that Mrs. Hudson sounded very good-humoured and not panicky in any way, unlike himself.

“Mrs. Hudson?” he asked once he found his voice, “Why are you calling from Sherlock’s phone?”

“Oh I came to check on all the banging, to see if he’d been shooting at the wall again, I _just_ had the walls installed last _week_ , oh dear, and that was the _fourth_ time this—”

“Mrs. Hudson,” he stopped her as politely as possible, “What is it?”

“Oh Sherlock just wanted me to see how you’re doing.  I’ve got no idea why he doesn’t just call _himself_ , but he said something about a _signature_ and how calling and talking to human beings is quite out of the question.  Honestly, he’s the—”

“Mrs. Hudson,” John stopped her yet again, feeling very discourteous but it was a necessary evil, “Is there something I can do for you?  Because I’m at dinner, you see.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Hudson sounded like she had an epiphany, “ _Dinner_ , you say?  Well get on with it then, don’t keep a gentleman waiting!  That’s bad manners, John!”  Then she whispered, “Don’t do anything silly!”

“I won’t,” John answered, slowly rubbing his temples.  It was a lost cause to correct Mrs. Hudson.

When he went back inside, all apologetic and smiles, he found Marigold furiously typing away on her Blackberry.  When he sat down, she brusquely said, “Just a moment.”

It wasn’t until that ‘moment’—which was really about a minute—was over, did Marigold put her phone away, and seemed to recover herself, “Sorry,” she just remembered to say, “Work stuff.  Very gruesome.  Life and death in unfortunately the most metaphorical sense.”

“No, no,” John gestured, “my bad to begin with.”

“Was that Sherlock?”

John looked at her in surprise, “Yes, yes, it was,” he lied easily, not wanting to explain the whole Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock refusing to call situation.  He wasn’t sure he understood it himself.

“Roommate emergency?  What, the toilet burst?”

“Not quite,” he didn’t know how to explain this away, “He, uh, wanted to check in on how, uh, the dinner went.”

“Not much confidence in your dating skills,” she said, amused.

“No, that he doesn’t have much of.  Or confidence in anything, in anyone,” he said wryly.

“Well, if I didn’t know any better, I would suspect that he didn’t want you to be gone for too long,” she said.

John instinctively opened his mouth to argue, and found that he had no argument.

“But,” she went on, “I do know better, so I know that he doesn’t.”

He smiled sheepishly, somehow taking responsibility for Sherlock’s action seeming very natural to the both of them.

“Besides,” she smiled coyly, “it would take more than one dinner to make it into my bed.”

A little blunt, but he appreciated the honesty.  “Well, still, I had a great time,” he said, suddenly struck by nerves.

She chuckled, “As did I.  In fact, I knew I would before we even went.  I gave up my four inch Louboutin heels, John, that’s a mighty sacrifice and considerable confidence in your charms.”

“You didn’t have to,” he motioned to height with his hands, “I don’t really mind.”

“Don’t be silly,” she clucked, “There is romance in turning your face upwards to kiss your soldier.  Doisneau made a fucking career out of it.”

If his back was not already habitually straightened to a stiff line, he would have straightened it more.  As it was, however, he glowed a little, despite not having gotten the said kiss yet.

Anticipation made things better, he thought, as he paid for the bill.

They entered into the glass elevator, and it was just the two of them, seeing the expanse of London before them as they descended into it.  Halfway through Marigold pressed against him, soft, scented flesh warm against his side, and kissed him.

John was taken by surprise, but he soon turned the tables around, and soon Marigold emitted a low rumble of approval in the back of her throat, and John all of a sudden found the tipsy euphoria that disappeared when Mrs. Hudson called.  Indeed, she had to stand on her tiptoes, and for some reason that detail made John’s chest burst.

The night was just as beautiful when they stepped outside, breathless, the star-spangled sky spread out before them like a darkened carpet of farewell.  It would be full summer in a week or so, but tonight was one of those rare London nights when it was neither too warm nor too brisk.  The grass on the pavement bloomed furiously, and the cement glowed with the residue heat of the day.

John was struck by a moment of fatalism—that this was going far too well to be just pure coincidence, because coincidence never worked in his favor.  The only time that things ever went well for him arbitrarily was when Mike Stamford introduced him to Sherlock, and it would be too much to expect that an arbitrary drink with Mike would inadvertently introduce him to Marigold as well.  The night was too beautiful, the weather too nice, and just at the perfect cusp of summer, at the best timing, during that lull between cases, a woman so used to her own hectic life that she didn’t even notice his inattentiveness, and on a night like _this_.

It made so much sense, and it might have been the four drinks that swirled inside his stomach, but god it was like they were meant to find each other.  It was a silly thought, John knew, just like how he felt that the evening was so nice just for him, but again, he couldn’t help the thought from permeating the whole of his body.

Everything was unlikely, and wasn’t that enough to create a fate from there?  There was obviously no cracked animal bone in the Oracle of Delphi to tell who John would meet inside a shoddy bar, and there was no sense in it beyond what John chose to believe, but in that one moment, when his future looked to be filled with love, clean and whole and flush, John chose to believe that it was his romantic fate, that _Marigold_ was his romantic fate.

And it was a satisfying thought.

 


	4. Rampant Expectations

**Part IV**

**Rampant Expectations**

_Better if it lasts for years,_  
so you are old by the time you reach the island,  
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,  
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

It turned out that fate—or love, or just sex—only took one more date.

Granted, their second date was almost two months later, before the two of them could both commit to a time.  However, in the meantime, they had many interactions.  Marigold had bailed John out once—when Greg got absolutely _livid_ when he found out that John had stolen his Browning pistol back from the police station, locked the both of them up, and John had no option but to resort to shame-facedly call Marigold up.  Marigold had thought it a high old joke, laughing about it for _weeks_.  And there was that time that they ran into each other at the coffee shop, where they were meeting a client who _refused_ to set outside of the public eye, and she was, well, getting coffee.  That was when John and Marigold realized that coffee was actually the best occasion to meet up, and then did a few of those, even sneaking into the back door of a small local museum for a fifteen minutes break, gazing at a replica of the _Polish Rider_ with soft intensity.

The date went fine—nothing extraordinary.   John did not feel the same overwhelming, irrational sense of fate, but he attributed that to the lack of a full bar at this particular oyster bar.  He was not a fan of the slimy bites—although he wasn’t _not_ a fan either—but Marigold seemed to have a soft spot for them, and he had a soft spot for the way her eyes alighted at the mention of oysters.

They had a few beers, and when the time came and he sent her home in a cab, she had—almost shyly—asked if he wanted a cup of coffee.  The euphemism was not lost upon John, and he gladly took up her offer, despite having ordered two cups of tea at the restaurant already.

It did not take them long to discard conversation and take up to discarding each other’s clothes.  He had some trouble with her bra, and she clumsily stabbed her hand with the clasp of his belt.  Something about the way she looked like she was holding in laughter—not a cruel laughter, but one that realized the comic nature of trying to peel underwear off while looking appropriately passionate—made his heart jump.  It was almost the glee that he felt when his date laughed at a line in a movie that he thought was particularly funny but nobody else seemed to.

There was a timidity to the urgency, small moments where he or she were uncomfortable in their skin, aware of the flabbiness in their abdomen or thighs, before momentarily forgetting their own ugliness in each other’s kisses, feeling younger, more wholesome, and even _beautiful_ in certain moments, when there was clear admiration and desire in each other’s faces.  In a way, sex was like chasing a criminal with Sherlock—or a case with Sherlock was like sex.  He was too caught up in— _ah_ —feeling and being felt to really think about why that thought felt strange, and soon the main supply of his blood abandoned his brain.

But more than anything, he liked the languid, post-coital haze, completely satisfied, at once slightly hungry and so full, thirsty too but his throat rasping in a good way, and his thoughts turning so heavily, like limbs in thick water.

A clear chime cut through the moment of cuddling, and she dug out his phone from underneath her back and tossed it onto his chest.

He wiped a finger against the sweat-moistened surface and checked his messages.  Two unopened texts, both from Sherlock, obviously.  Nothing urgent, just a general observation of ‘ _Out of milk’_ and then a seemingly innocent ‘ _It was the valet, if you must know.’_   John knew that he had meant ‘Where are you’ somewhere along the line, but did not feel that it was right to type up a message with Marigold peering right at him.

“Another one solved?” she asked, as languid as he felt.

“Genius likes audience,” he shrugged.

She raised herself slowly on one elbow and looked at him.

Damn, he slipped again.  Not only was it bad to be talking about another person in the post-sex cuddle, but to be talking about _Sherlock_ , a man who was menace to his relationship-building endeavors.

“Children,” she said slowly, “run up to their parents to show handiwork for their audience, yes, but also the surety of their audience.”

It took John a moment to fully absorb all the insinuations jammed in that short sentence, and afterwards, he said thoughtfully: “You know, you’re the first woman I’ve dated who hasn’t declared him devil spawn.”

Marigold collapsed back into the crook of his arm and he felt her shrug against him.  “And that’s why they are in the past tense.”

He laughed at her easy confident before growing somber as he realized just how true it was.

That perhaps was the first bell, but in truth, he should have seen it a long time before that.

**-.-.-**

“So how’s the dating scene been?” Sarah asked, tossing the question seemingly offhandedly as she pressed the button on the coffee machine, and a stream of spluttering hot coffee shot into her Styrofoam cup.

John gave her a tired smile.  He hadn’t told any of them of his newfound relationship with Marigold.  It didn’t seem like a good idea, given the overly gossipy nature of the group—it was understandable, really, what did these people have in their lives but general banality?

The pervading smell of vanilla and coffee was invigorating though, and John answered carefully, “Oh, much of the same,” before quickly taking a cup as well to busy his hands.  He looked down at the cup, as if there was something fascinating about the white, bubbly foam, but he could feel Sarah’s gently prying eyes on him still.

“You’ve been going out on dates less,” Sarah remarked.

He shrugged.  His cup was done now, and the two of them made their way back to the break room, where the rest of his colleagues were chattering on about other banalities.  It was Friday, so they were extending their morning break by an extra ten minutes.  Fridays were always the best days, because the impeding weekend brought on a sense of urgency in the morning, and a justification to procrastinate in the afternoon.  Also, the vending machine in the back of the kitchenette had the highest frequency of breaking down on Friday—John was pretty sure Henry had made a pie chart or something about it—and that always meant free pop along with the free doughnuts.

But of course all the doughnuts were gone by the time they returned with coffee, with the exception of one single, sad plain old-fashioned, sitting there crumbly and smeared with various icings.

Sarah put a hand on his elbow and brought his attention back.  “One of my friends from uni is visiting this weekend,” Sarah began in the same offhanded way that she inquired about his relationship status, and John could see where this was heading.

Ruby, the leggy receptionist, was in the middle of telling everybody about this new restaurant that was remodeled and reopened, and how the bouillabaisse was just the most delectable thing in the world—except she was pronouncing it like bowl-la-base.  Even then, her eyes flicked to John the moment Sarah mentioned her uni friend, and John wondered if Ruby was not secretly the smartest person in the room, able to carry out several trains of thought simultaneously.

He was trying to come up with some sort of excuse to not see Sarah’s friend—not that he didn’t like spending time with Sarah, but the last time she tried to set a blind date, the woman had talked about the minimum price of wedding rings within half an hour—when his phone suddenly vibrated.

And it vibrated again, and again, until he realized that it wasn’t a text.

Confused, he pulled out the phone, smiling a little apologetically at the group.  Sherlock never called—even when his life was in danger he took the time to find all the little keys to text.  Mycroft never called him, preferring to take him by surprise.  Harry never called, because she knew he wouldn’t pick up.  Marigold never called during the day because she was too busy.  There really wasn’t that many people in his life, was there?

As it turned out, it _was_ Marigold.  Her personal number flashed on the screen.

Even more confused, he answered it.  “Marigold?  Is something wrong?”

Great, Ruby face lit up at a girl’s name.  John knew he couldn’t escape the water cooler torture now.

“John,” her voice sounded distracted as always when she was working, “You’re on coffee break, right?”

“That’s right,” of course Marigold would remember his break schedule.

“Are you busy today?  Do you have time around noon?”

“Sure, I have time,” it was a day of average patient flow, but surely anything was more exciting than the slow surge of daily headaches and the common flu.  Besides, Marigold rarely _asked_ , preferring to backhandedly demand—so this must be a big ask.

“Oh _good_ ,” she breathed in relief then went silent for a minute, and he could make out a string of curses under her breath and patiently waited for her to finish that email.  “John?”

“Still here,” he answered.

“Right, a total firedrill blew up this morning, do you mind picking up somebody at the airport?  You can take my car, of course, if you want.”  By now John was versed enough in her lingo to know that ‘blowing up’ with Marigold meant a completely different thing than it did with Sherlock.

“Sure,” he could have lunch off, maybe grab a sandwich to go.  Hell, he’d have a day’s leave to drive her car.  Yes, it was _that_ beautiful.

“Flight UA334 from New York, 12:35 arrival.  His name is Logan, five eleven, kind of scrawny, probably mismatched clothes.  Can’t tell you what color his hair will be.  Thanks a ton, I’ll take both of you to dinner!  Okay, got to go, bye!”

Click.

Before Ruby could make out a stream of questions, John stood up and said, “Coffee break over, I better get to the next patient.  If anything comes up during lunch, could you cover for me, Sarah?”  He hated asking her for favors, but she was the only person who didn’t try to dig up everything in his life.

As soon as she nodded with a strained smile, he dashed out.

He almost skipped out when the clock struck eleven thirty.  Never mind that it was unbecoming for a man his age to skip, and blast whatever Ella would say about his psychosomatic limp.

He spotted the straight away in the car park.  Marigold’s car was a beast: an absolutely _gorgeous_ dark matte blue Maserati GranTurismo Sport, appropriately youthful with two-toned orange leather interior, the wheels coated in matte platinum.  A young-ish bloke in a crisp but cheap suit was waiting by it, tossing a set of keys up in the air and snatching it repeatedly.

John walked up to him.  Twenty, if that, with a tie far more expensive than his suit, probably out of his means and a gift. Hair in a tapered Ivy League cut, side-parted with pomade, past its peak with perhaps ten weeks’ worth of growth.  John delighted in trying to figure out people with Sherlock’s methods, and he didn’t particularly care if he was right: the act itself was fun was all.

“John Watson?” the bloke asked him uncertainly with a slight frown, as if disapproving of his appearance.

John frowned back.  He was wearing his Haversack coat, and he looked spiffy, if he did say so himself.  It was a rather expensive jacket, no less so than the bloke’s tie, and if it was a bit tattered from years of wear and strenuous physical activity in the recent year, it was still well cared for.  While his denim jeans didn’t exactly fit in with the immediate environment, he wasn’t _working_ here.  “Those keys are for Marigold’s Maserati right?”

“Yes, Doctor Watson?”

John nodded.

“ID please?”

John dug into his pocket to get his wallet, and flapped it open to show the bloke his clinic card.

“Ah, sorry, Doctor, can’t be too cautious these days,” the bloke extended his hand and John plucked the keys out of them quickly.  He kept his hand extended however, and John realized that he wanted a handshake.  “Archie.”

“John Watson,” he said, not too offended by youth.  In fact it was rather good sense.  Marigold’s firm hired kids with good heads.

“Right.  She mentioned something about having a friend fly in, and I offered to get one of the trading interns to go get him for her—God knows that they would welcome a job like that compared to getting everybody’s lunch orders.  Trading internships.” He smiled at John as if he expected John to share the joke, so John smiled back politely.  “Anyway, Marigold said that she already took care of it.”

Well, an unusually chatty one.

“Just be careful, mate, alright?  This is Marigold’s _baby_ , and Jove help me if it gets scratched and she’s in a mood.”

John was getting slightly irritated, because this Archie was keeping John from driving and what, he thought John didn’t _know_ that this was Marigold’s baby?  He was a bit presumptuous; John took back the bit about good heads.  “I know, I will,” he said politely, despite his irritation.

“Ah, okay.” The boy was somehow reluctant to leave, and they both turned to look at the waiting car.

The sun broke and shone on the matte metal, as if alighting it in an aureole halo.  A wave of giddiness hit John as he thought of actually being able to _drive_ this beauty—normally Marigold drew the line at driving him to the grocers to get milk, which she did only in apology after _she_ stood _him_ up for dates.

“Right then,” he cleared his throat, “I should get going.”

“Right,” the bloke echoed him, “I’ll just see you off.”

John pulled open the door and sank into the sports seat.  He blinked.

Oh, right, the _left_ side was the driver seat.  Marigold imported it from America when she came over.  Something about not being able to afford another Maserati.  John would have thought it all bull a month ago, but apparently banking was not as lucrative as the masses believed—or at least not at her level.

He climbed out and into the other side, careful to not look at the bloke’s face.

Driving on the wrong side was surprisingly easy, and thankfully he did not crash into anything, making to the airport safe and sound.  He stood by the arrival’s gate, holding a piece of paper on which he wrote ‘Logan’ in large, blocky letters.  He felt very foolish in his sweater, next to all the suited chauffeurs carrying printout nametags, but held his ground like any respectable soldier.

A couple people starting trickling out.  Some young woman jumped a young man as soon as he came out.  A middle-aged man gave the next woman who came out a large bouquet, somewhat embarrassed and awkward.  About a dozen other people came and went until somebody who fitted Marigold’s description came out, eyes scanning the crowd.

_Okay_ , John thought, _pink, okay_.

The man—just easing into his thirties, same age as Marigold, pink hair, in a woolly cardigan with elbow patches, glasses that were so painfully unfashionable that they might be fashion forward, pink hair, a few hairs on his chin where he missed shaving, and did John mention _pink hair_?

To be fair, it was not the shocking hot pink like the pink lady from A Study in Pink, but a rather faded, reddish color, but it was still _pink_ for god’s sake.  He had not known Marigold associated with _artiste_ types like this one here.

The man—Logan, presumably—saw his sign and came over, clearly as confused as John was when Marigold called.

“Logan?” he ventured to guess.

“Yes?” he answered questioningly, “Did Goldie send you?”

Why did all of her friends call her Goldie, John thought irritably.  It made him feel so detached to call her Mary, but he couldn’t fall into calling her ‘Goldie’ either, the nickname clearly coming from a time when he wasn’t in her life.  “Yes, Marigold couldn’t come.  Work, you know.”

Logan rolled his eyes and grunted, “Of course.  This is New York all over again.  Well at least I’ll be getting a round of free shots tonight.”  He reached out his hand, “Logan.”

“John, John Watson,” he drew in closer to him and gripped his outstretched hand tightly.  He was annoyed to find that he seemed even shorter next to the gangly man.  Logan wasn’t nearly as tall as Sherlock, but they had the same build that made them appear taller than they were.

The drive back was awkward.  John had tried to make small talk— _is this your first time in London?  Did you know Marigold from school?  The weather’s just turned nice today_ —but Logan only rewarded him with one syllable answers— _no, yes, hm_.  Soon even John gave up, and they drove in a thick silence.

“This is Marigold’s car.” suddenly Logan remarked, fingering the pine-shape car freshener that hung from the car ceiling between them.

John was a little startled, to be honest, and he nearly stepped on the gas a bit more than he should have.  “Yes, she lent me so that I could pick you up.”

Logan turned right to look at him with a sidelong, funny glance.  It was a very careful and judging glance.  “She let you drive her car?”

“Yes,” John didn’t like how Logan seemed so surprised by it.

Logan turned forward again, giving a humming mumble, tugging more at the watermelon scented pine-shape.

“Why?” John pressed, unwilling for the silence to return, also curious as to why Logan seemed so baffled.

“She didn’t even let me use her laptop back in the day.  Got freaked out like a snarling cat whenever I tried to show her anything on YouTube.”

Marigold did have control problems when it came to other people touching her laptop or other personal electronics, he had noticed.  He also thought about how Sherlock took his personal laptop and hacked the passwords within five seconds.  Of course, ‘getoutyousoddinggit’ was not the most secure password.  “She still doesn’t like people handling her laptop,” he offered.

“Yet, car,” he deadpanned.

“Yes, well, boyfriends get special privileges.”

Logan’s head snapped toward him, and John could tell from his peripheral vision that his eyes had grown wide as saucers.  “You?  She’s dating _you_?”

“Yes,” now John was really beginning to get irritated by this American.

“Sorry, no offence, just that,” Logan paused, “she normally does the blond, blocky type.”

John preferred to not take that comment literally.

“Taller, usually,” Logan added.

John hit the brakes at the next red light a little too abruptly and Logan squirmed against the seat belt.  Once John gave up on talking, they immediately fell back into silence, even thicker this time due to the previous exchange.

John wasn’t sure what to do with this man, so he pulled up to his clinic and let both of them out.  He sent a quick text to Marigold, letting her know that her car was just as flawless as before, and asked how to deal with Logan.

Within half a minute her reply came: ‘Please adopt him until 5, will come find you.’

John groaned audibly, and Logan shot him a dirty look.  Great.  Logan already didn’t like him for some reason, so of course he had to make it worse.  Just bloody fantastic.  John put on as believable a smile as he could muster and asked the pink haired man, “Would you like to see the hospital that I work at?”

The man gave him a disinterested shrug, as if to say ‘ _what choice do I have_ ’?

So for the dull hours of between one and five, John’s patient room had an extra piece of furniture.  Well, a moving piece of furniture, who wanted to touch everything with a curiosity that went along well with the under-ten-years-of-age patients.  They had nothing much to say to one another, and as Logan didn’t seem interested in small talk, John was happy to work in relative silence.

Five thirty rolled in as slowly as it always did on Fridays, and it was the ninth time that John was looking at the clock in the last five minutes.

“I thought she said five,” Logan finally asked, a deepness to his voice that prevented him from sounding too whiny.

John smiled apologetically, “Well, she’s usually very bad with keeping time.  Busy.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Logan asked, head unconsciously to one side.  The way he was looking at him, John felt like a Rubik’s cube that Logan was itching to manhandle.

“Why shouldn’t I be okay,” John asked back, “it’s not like she’s willfully late.”

Logan gave a noncommittal hum and went back to his phone.

Another ten minutes later, John’s phone buzzed.  It was Sherlock, remarking on the dearth of milk in their fridge.  Also asking for a whole (and if possible, healthy) liver.  As he was sending back a response, his phone buzzed again, and this time it was Marigold.

‘Terroirs in half’, was the succinct message.  Not two seconds later, followed by: ‘I feel like I should apologize on Logan’s behalf, for whatever he has or hasn’t done.’

John chuckled, because what else could he do?

Terroirs was a modest, softly lit tapas bar that was surprisingly not that crowded.  They, of course, arrived first, and Logan had already ordered a peach martini when Marigold hurried walk in, her heels clicking with rhythm.

“Goldie!” Logan threw himself at her, completely engulfing her and putting too much of his weight on her.  Marigold stumbled and seemed on the verge of collapsing, but she was laughing.

“You got a _boyfriend_!” he accused the moment they peeled away from each other.

“Why are you surprised, after all the time you’ve known me?” she said as she sat down and took a look at the menu.

“You didn’t say anything!”

“Course not, I didn’t want you to scare him away.”

“I’m right here,” John piped up.

“He’s certainly _different_ ,” Logan said meaningfully.

“Considering how the previous ones worked out, it shows that I’m learning.”

“I agree that Finn was _dumb_ , but shorter doesn’t mean smarter either!  Besides, Finn had _an island_.”

“I’m right _here_ you know,” John offered again, “Hasn’t gone away, or disappeared.”

“It was a _boring_ island.  Nothing but _cows_ there.  And John’s not boring at least.”

“Yeah?  You better tell me how.”

“I refuse.  You’ll just use it for blackmailing later,” Marigold lifted a hand to flag down a waiter.

“Oh when have I ever successfully blackmailed you?”

“Not for a lack of trying, certainly.”

“Nor a lack of material: there was frat-boy Finn, academic Alan, tiny Timothy, WASP-y Will, and let’s not forget lilting Liam.”

Well that was a rather impressive list, John thought, although he was being hypocritical.

“Oh _god_ you bloody _alliterated_!” Marigold said in horror.

“In any case, you _have_ to tell me the story, because there _is_ one,” Logan said, surreptitiously glancing at John.

John was very, very brassed off now.  “Stop this gallivanting right _now_ ,” he growled out, his voice low but cutting through their chatter like a hot knife through flesh.  John rarely blew up—at anybody besides Sherlock, in any case—but when he did, he was a scary person, he knew.  His stance was straight and soldierly, his gaze steely and commanding, and he wore his captain’s title without the need of an actual badge.

Indeed, both of them stopped and stared at him, Logan surprised and Marigold just a little turned on.

Immediately, he regretted his outburst, because really, hadn’t he himself wondered the same thing?  A portion of the John Watson who was acutely aware of his height and the wrinkles on his face and maybe the pulling threads in his shirt too—that John Watson could not quite believe that Marigold was here for him.  Not that he considered Marigold out of his league (he’d had fitter women, although in his toned, military youth), but he would like to hear Marigold say that.

Damn Sherlock and planting ideas into his head.  But once the idea was there, he could not help but notice the little things. 

Sherlock antagonized her, in a way that was surprising.  Usually, Sherlock treated his girlfriends as inconveniences of a lesser mind (like he did everybody else), whose existence he chose to ignore or to upset, depending on his mood.  Sherlock usually offended the women without trying to—but with Marigold, he _was_ trying.  And failing.

Because despite Sherlock’s sour words, Marigold _liked_ Sherlock, in a way that John seldom saw in people.  As a rule, John rarely saw anything but a deep (and usually deepening) _dis_ like.  Her fondness of the genius wasn’t even the suffering tolerance that Greg exhibited, or a puzzled if amused indifference that Mike took on.  No, she was genuinely interested in his opinions and quirks.  Her eyes would light up whenever John told her about the cases, and often she tried her hand at deduction (although she was really piss poor at it—she didn’t even notice when an entire sofa moved, this one time). 

He hadn’t introduced her formally to Greg yet, but there was a time when her boss left unexpectedly early, and she surprised him at the crime scene.  She made friends with Anderson—or as much as anybody could make friends with the miserable, grouchy man—and gave a fake little laugh at his joke.  John had felt just a little annoyed at her for it, but then at dinner she made a scathing remark about Anderson’s lack of intelligence and envy of Sherlock, a proud edge to her condescension that John hummed in resonance with.

There was this one case where they were investigating a series of murders, linked together by the ripped pages of a book.  Each of the victims were killed in a different fashion—asphyxiation, fire, blunt force trauma, blood loss, poison, etc.—but all of them had the chapter page of an old, out of print version of _Silas Marner_ next to them.  They had been allowed inside the bathtub of the latest victim, a woman lying naked and drowned, soap sods caked on the part of her legs raised above water.  John had to peel his arm away from Marigold’s clutch in order to examine the rigor of the body, but when he looked back, her eyes were wide not with just fear (although there was plenty of that, Sherlock scoffed later), but also a pure excitement.  (She even laughed a little, with a graceful self-deprecation, later, when Sherlock scoffed.)  Sherlock proclaimed the dead woman to be the serial killer—at which point Donovan scoffed and Anderson left the room.  It was simple (according to Sherlock), and actually quite ingenious (also Sherlock’s choice of diction).  The first murder had been a suicide, but this bathtub woman—interior designer, two dogs and a parakeet, moved around quite a bit—had encountered it before anybody had discovered the body, and promptly made it look like a murder scene with the insertion of the ripped page and a message.  Then she carefully killed the drunk driver who had ploughed through her parents, laying out another page.  Since she had a waterproof alibi for the first ‘murder’, this cleared her.  Caught in the invincibility she thought she possessed, she continued her killing spree, crossing off the woman engaged to an ex-boyfriend, the boss from ten years ago who got promoted on her work product, and eventually menial offenders such as the landlord who refused to turn up the heat.  Her real genius was her method of laying out the pages.  Her lesser-known uni minor was in chemistry, and by manipulating the bodies and inverting the order of the chapters, she successfully misled the police into believing a different time frame for the deaths, further solidifying her alibi.  However, she failed to realize that a friend of hers had noticed her disposal of the poison—and the said friend, with the same vintage _Silas Marner_ that they bought together, in the fresh graduation of their sorority rush back in the day, murdered her, leaving behind the next chapter of the same book.

When Sherlock left the scene, Marigold was silent and motionless.  John was beginning to be worried, when Marigold suddenly looked up and told him that this was the best 7am she had ever had.

And there was a day when they ran into Harry on the street—at Selfridges of all places, but thankfully Harry didn’t buy anything she couldn’t afford there.  Harry had made some offhand and inappropriate remark about his relationship with Sherlock (‘he’s always been commitment-phobic, like all men, except to the man that he lives with; this is why I’m a lesbian’).  Marigold had laughed, and he could tell it was a genuine one, full of amused surprise.  That was fine—it was fantastic that she wasn’t offended by his batshite-insane sister—but well, oughtn’t she be just a _little_ peeved that he was so focused on Sherlock?

In any case, he flagged down their waiter again and they placed their order with tense brevity.

The arrival of the charcuterie platter saved the atmosphere (there was little that could occupy Marigold’s mind when she was eating speck), and the tapas plates came quickly enough that there was not much room for idle discussion.  The cod—John refused to even think of the French names—was good, and Logan stuffed his big mouth with black pudding, while Marigold chomped down on the pig’s head.

Afterwards, they polished off a bottle of amontillado sherry, Marigold and Logan engaged feverishly in some talk about Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Clemm, and the conversation ceased to make sense to John.

Marigold did not invite him to her home that night, instead kissing him tenderly when she dropped him off.

In fact, the kiss was so tender and placating that John spent the better half of the night turning in his own bed (to the background music of Paganini’s Cantabile 17).

At the turning point of this day to the next, he gave up and took out his phone, pounding the keyboard vehemently.

In fifteen minutes, he was at Marigold’s.

Logan was snoring steadily in the living room, on the large, moss-colored sofa that he had helped Marigold pick up.  The sound rumbled through the flat and John wondered if everybody had _some_ sort of background music, and if he should be grateful that his was a masterful violin.

It would be juvenile to take advantage of a sleeping person, John told himself firmly as he slipped into Marigold’s bedroom.  She was sprawled on her bed, cocooned in her massive quilt.  She shifted over with a displeased groan to make room for him on the bed.  He walked over, sat on the edge, and was silent until Marigold looked at him in confusion.

In a spinning moment of self-doubt, he asked her, “Are you with me to be close to Sherlock?”

She seemed taken back—he couldn’t tell if it was a good taken back or a bad kind.  But quickly she overcame herself and started chuckling.  “What gave you that idea?”

Sherlock, of course, who amplified all his insecurities.  “Just a floating thought,” he gave vaguely, “It’s apparent that you’re very drawn towards him though.”

She looked at him as if she thought he was feverish, before responding very reasonably, “Well he’s an attractive figure, I suppose, but no, not really.  I mean, have you _talked_ to the guy?”  Then she laughed, because of course he of all people knew how hard it was to get along with Sherlock.  If it could even be called ‘getting along’.  “You want a drink?” she asked as she pulled a bottle of whisky and another of amaretto out of her night drawer.

“I don’t see why not,” John answered.

She passed him a glass, taking a long drink from her own before he even touched it.  She was still feeling the effects of the night’s earlier drinks, John could tell, a sort of cheery carelessness to her.  Her silk pyjama top was buttoned incorrectly and skewed, but she was completely without self-consciousness, and although her movements were chunky, she carried them out with a grace she only put on when she was drunk.  Marigold was a very different drunk than Harry, which was why John felt like he wasn’t looking at a drunk.

“Logan had polished off the last of the gin,” Marigold said, swirling her drink in one hand, “but you like whisky anyway.”

John could always appreciate a good Talisker—the finer points of Island whiskys introduced to him by Marigold, who couldn’t tell the difference between most of the ones she recommended—but he was more eager to get back on track.  “It’s just that, well, you seem to be very interested in what he does,” John replied as offhandedly as he could.  “I mean, what Sherlock does.”

“Oh I am, but it’s also what you do, no?”

John shrugged.  It was, but it was also undeniable that Sherlock was the heart of the matter.

“What’s wrong with me taking an interest in what you do then?” she asked.

He thought she might have been teasing, because this was _exactly_ what was wrong—that he was scared she was more interested in what he did than _him_.  But that sounded like a pathetic high-schooler even in his head, so John wisely said instead, “You'd known him before you met me.”  It wasn’t a question.

She shrugged now, “I’d seen his name in the papers, but I don’t read the headlines not pertinent to finance.  Besides, I recognized _you_ , when we first met.”

Ah, the mystery of the younger, successful woman checking him out in a bar.

When it became clear to her that he was waiting for an elaboration, she dragged herself up and continued.  “We were in a bake-off for some stupid newspaper company.  I started picking up a copy of this company’s paper, just to make my Managing Director’s life easier.  It happened, on that particular day, that your case made the headlines, the journalist featured a quick profile for you two, and most importantly, my MD’s phone conference dragged out a whole half hour longer than anticipated.  These circumstances led to me idly typing johnwatsonblog.co.uk into my phone's browser.  Your blog (probably due to lower traffic) came up quickly, and so I looked at your profile picture and had even read half of the Speckled Blonde entry before I was called into my boss’s decidedly more spacious office.  That night, I went to the pub with my co-worker, and I immediately recognized your face.”

“Just happened to.”

“Yup.”

“Of all the—"

“If you quote Casablanca, I’ll hit you.”

“I wasn’t going to.”  Not word for word anyway.  “And so you thought, ‘hey, why don’t I finish the rest of the Speckled Blonde story’?”

She shrugged, “Basically.”

John wasn’t sure if this made it better.  “So essentially you _were_ looking for Sherlock.”

“No,” she snapped, “if I wanted Sherlock I would have killed somebody.”

That would be more successful in gaining his attention, although it would have to be a clever kill.  “Well, know more _about_ him then.”

“I wanted you to tell me a story,” Marigold said impatiently, “isn’t that what you chat up women for?  To tell them about yourself?”

“Yes,” technically, but that wasn’t the point.

“So we both have what we want.  What’s the problem?”

“It’s not a _problem_ ; I just want to understand you better.”

She scoffed and turned away.

John thought she was upset and so started, “Look—”

She cut him off, “You want another?”

He hadn’t finished it yet, but he passed his glass to her anyway so she could top it off.  “I’m not _accusing_ you of anything.”

“You better not be,” she scoffed.

“No need to get antagonistic.”

“I’m _not_ antagonistic.”

In any case, John was willing to rest the case for now.  He thought Marigold was actually just antagonistic enough—not too much to be contrived and too little to be guilty—to make her story believable.

However, she shot her drink down and after licking her lips, she said, “I wouldn’t like Sherlock, John.  I’m not another _Molly_.”

She was definitely not Molly, John thought, almost amused.

“She,” Marigold went on, “is an altogether very hopeful sort of person, but I learned that contented heroines are not feminist, and that happy endings are not literature.  That god is dead and we have to become gods in order to cleanse our murder of him.  That the dog Fido, lost in the first chapter, fails to turn up happily barking in the last.  That eggs are feminine fertility and whenever I eat one I am devouring myself.  That good men are hard to find.  That being skinny is no longer what other people want out of me, but what I want for myself, and nothing will taste as good as being thin.  That death knows no forgiveness, and sometimes suicide is an act that is unconditionally beautiful.  That hell is other people and also because I believe I am in hell.  That Greece is just a dirty shithole and not the shimmering thrones of Aphrodite.  That even my most vivid experiences will be transient, and the rest of my life will be forever trying to recreate that.  That high school never ends.  That love is chemical.  That everybody lies.  That real life picks up where the Jane Austen novel ends.  That the rich is miserable, but it is better to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable.”

At some point, she had come closer and looped her arms around his waist.  John had been distracted by the bombardment of cultural allusions in her little tirade, and was anxious that he was missing the point in there somewhere.  “Hm,” he hummed, but Marigold didn’t seem to be waiting for a response, so instead he just reciprocated her gesture.  Her speech didn’t make sense, in or out of context, but he couldn’t deny that it felt intimate, like a confession.  It made him immediately feel like he understood Marigold, and in return she understood him.

And so what else was left, when that was established, but to love each other?


	5. What You Are To Me

**Part VI**

**What You Are To Me**

_Keep Ithaka always in your mind._  
Arriving there is what you are destined for.  
But do not hurry the journey at all.

What a bloody horrid day.

A non-stop roll of foul-mouthed kids and foul-tempered grown-ups.  The internet had done a great thing for medicine: it had turned every half-literate person who could open up WebMD into a hypochondriac with a self-proclaimed doctoral degree.  And the completely illiterate were turned into conspiracy-theorists who questioned every sentence they couldn’t understand.  All of them had meager issues with health—at least, meager imminent ones, beyond the usual underlying liabilities of recreational drugs, cheap alternative drug use to keep their habit, intake of liquor, and dirty children.  John processed every single one of them with patience and spat out generic prescriptions that only a quarter of them would even attempt to follow correctly.

There was nobody born for this job: all of them bristled through daily routines like a boat through algae-infested waters, moving slowly and slickly.

Somebody had stolen his lunch sandwich—John suspected that it was Henry, although Henry had professed a deep hatred for prosciutto when confronted.  He went back to his office, hungry and irked, only to be hit in the face with the smell of moldy weed.  Earlier that day, he had treated a young man who was convinced that weed was the only correction for the damages of being a crack baby (that was what he claimed he was).  John struggled through the rest of the day on two Reese’s peanut butter cups and a bar of Snickers that he got with three trips to the vending machine in the coffee room, wild with either hunger or the need to burst out of his office.

He also had double duty, since Hank called him up on his last favor—the Case of the Bleached Footman.  The later shift wasn’t that bad, in all honesty: it was mostly shifty individuals who didn’t quite believe the ‘free’ in the ‘free clinic’ sign, and worried parents that found their children exhibiting ‘strange’ behavior when they got home from _their_ overtime shift.  The floor was emptied by seven except for Ruby still chatting on the phone with one of her girlfriends, her legs propped up on an empty chair next to her and a trace of her buttocks showing.  When she caught Henry staring, she winked and laughed when he scampered away.  She stayed until seven-thirty.  By the time John shut down his computer and closed his daily filing, even Sarah was gone—which was rare, Sarah being one of the few who honestly believed in the job.  Also, they’ve been having theft issues (although John couldn’t see the point in bringing home sanitized gloves, but to each their own), and she had been locking up.

The medicine cabinet was closed, the office locked, and the front door shut.  He flagged down a cab, and after a second, gave the driver Bedford Court.

In the fifteen minutes it took to get there, John managed to fall to a light, open-mouthed sleep.  When the cab finally pulled over out of London traffic, John took great effort to heave himself out of the car and up four flights of stairs.

He had texted Marigold as he was locking up the penicillin (again, who would steal penicillin?), and asked if he could rest at her place, being generally neater and quieter than 221 Baker St (also less prone to explosions and chemical fumes).  She had responded with a generous ‘Of course’, and also that she would be home early tonight.  He texted her and waited at the door though, because one could never be sure if something had come up last minute at work and hogged her up.

It wasn’t a very good feeling, to be canceled upon, and he had much more empathy for his ex-girlfriends now.

No response yet, and the cursive ‘419’ glared at him angrily.  He momentarily thought about emailing her business number, but decided that he didn’t want to be bothersome.  So instead he tried his luck with approaching the door and knocking.

Hm, there was a great deal of noise emitting from inside—a good sign, he supposed, although quite out of the ordinary.  Usually the place was either dead quiet because nobody was around, or dead quiet because all four of them were passed out in fatigue.  Today, however, there was loud shouting and even louder laughter, and it sounded like there must at least be five different voices.  How very strange, he thought as the door pulled open.

A portly man stood in front of him, face still holding a great laugh from some joke undoubtedly.  John described him as portly because John was a polite man—but in truth the man was definitely beyond portly.  It was a wonder that his suit jacket could button at all, and such an expanse of cloth that it was.

“Ah, you must be the doctor,” he said, sticking out his right hand for a friendly shake.

John took it, and constricting his hand to clutch it just as tightly as the man squeezed his hand.  He remembered Marigold saying something about how bankers judged a person based on the vigor of their grip.  “That would be me, yes.  John Watson.”

“Right, Goldie talks about you all the time.  Dan here.  You’re a bit late, but come on in!”

Dan was a blocky man, a few inches taller than John, and so had hitherto completely blocked John’s view of the interior.  So it came as quite a shock when Dan moved aside to let him in, and John saw the flat holding a good two dozen people.  They were all dressed rather smartly, and the men all had ties if not blazers, so naturally John felt a little out of place in his lumpy cable knit sweater.  At the very least he ought to be in his good shirt and a cotton tie, even if he didn’t own any pocket squares or cuff links.

It was just blokes, as far as he could see, although the sound of female chatter came from behind a half-closed door leading to Marigold’s washroom.  John felt like he was back at Uni, attending a formal rugby event.  Except he was the odd one out, like he had forgotten to bring a date or something.

Just as he thought that, Marigold swam through the hoard of men and came before him.

She was glowing in her slim orange peplum dress.  Possibly from drinking.  The dress wasn’t new, but the string of black pearls around her neck was, John thought.  The room smelt like bubbly wine, and the chaps all had cups in their hands—but they were plastic red Solo cups, the kind associated with American beer pong and definitely not champagne.  Marigold, however, carried two flutes and passed one to him.

“Drink up,” she said, a bit more commanding than she ought to have been.

Some bloke behind her laughed and jested about her being controlling.  John didn’t appreciate the jab, so he downed the champagne like it was water.  It was good champagne, he could tell, and licked his lips afterwards, almost regretting his petty vengeance.

Marigold laughed though, apparently not at all bothered, and hooked an arm around his.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Dan took the opportunity to gather everybody’s attention, “well, ladies and men,” some bloke gave another laugh, “let me present the good doctor, John Watson, arm candy to our very own Mary Morstan!”

John had a sinking feeling that he had forgotten some sort of occasion.  It was obvious that they were celebrating something, and Marigold had something to do with it.  He hoped that it was a promotion or something work-related and completely arbitrary, and not something like her—

“To the birthday girl!” Dan announced.

—Birthday.  Right.  John sighed.  Way to fuck up royally, John.   And this time he didn’t even have Sherlock to blame.  Hell, normally he was so good with these things too.  John had always been a man sentimental about Tradition.  There was something about the vast sea of meaning behind all Tradition that made him somber and appreciative.  He took the time to properly acknowledge holidays, chaptered his life by events such as graduation and marriages, and enjoyed military marches more than the average soldier.  He even gave going to the pub with friends a certain ceremonial aura—always a pitcher of dark stout and cracklings with Mike, shots with Bill and no pub food because he would throw it all back up, and red lager and shared crisps with Greg and the Scottish Yard.

And yet he forgot his girlfriend’s _birthday_.  He could feel a headache coming on very strongly now.

Marigold was much more demure than she usually was—the people were probably all from her office, but John did not think about that in his distress, and instead chalked up her relative quietness to nonchalance.  She probably didn’t know he forgot, so he just needed to come up with a good excuse and surprise her later—didn’t she mention she wanted some purse or something?  It was expensive, but this was an expensive mistake.

In John’s silent, frantic musing, Dan took it upon himself to make John feel included.  Dan handed John another cup, the liquid inside questionably clear and smelling strongly of tequila.  “Really though, drink up,” Dan encouraged.  “It’ll get better once all the underlings get out and it’s just us.”

John had no idea who ‘us’ was, but obligingly took a sip.  It was indeed mostly just tequila.  It burnt his throat in a familiar and soothing way, so he put down the cup immediately.  There was no point in challenging the alcoholism written in his familial history, and he needed a clear head for later.

In about an hour—that felt like fifteen hours—most of the young blokes took their pretty, fit secretaries away.  Some of them had tried to butter him—him!  John Watson!—up, in hopes of getting on their VP’s good side.  A few of them were good at it, but there were also a few who were trying so painfully hard that John had taken pity to them and showed them the door.  It made John feel even guiltier, because even this birthday party for Marigold wasn’t really for her.

Only three others remained, and as soon as the door closed Marigold twirled her hair put and shook her head, her bun coming down swishing and making her look younger than her years.  One of the blokes—Bryon, John vaguely remembered—started cleaning up very naturally.

“Just leave it,” Marigold waved to Bryon, “The cleaning lady is coming by tomorrow anyway.  _God_ I can’t stand bankers.”

Bryon nodded and continued collecting sticky, half-empty cups.

Dan plopped himself down on the sofa and John swore he could feel the floor tremble.  “Goldie, you know that Bryon’s a house husband at heart.”

“Gotta get myself one of those,” Marigold joked, and then remembered that John was here, and explained half-seriously, “The only way to battle being amongst bros is be a bro yourself.”

John felt the corner of his mouth turning upwards despite the nervousness in his stomach about the inevitable blow up once they were alone.

Theo, who had disappeared to the coat closet during this exchange, came back with a large shopping bag.  “Here it is—we all chipped in.”

Marigold pulled out a bag from the bag, and another bag from there—he was later informed that it was called a dust cover—until she finally pulled out a handbag.  It reminded John of the smiley face forever gunned into their lounge wall (until Mrs. Hudson would finally get fed up and phone in for repairs).

“Oh god, I knew there was a reason I’m friends with you all!  A new Céline smile luggage!”

John briefly wondered if she had read his mind.

“You only gushed this color combo about it every day for a week,” Theo remarked dryly, “So it was hard not to get a hint.”

She had the decency to blush a little.  “Well it _is_ hard to get through to you guys sometimes.”

“Look, Goldie is _blushing_!” Dan exclaimed, throwing an arm around her shoulder and completely eclipsing her with his massive build.

“That’s some cow hide there,” Theo also joined the half hugging, “that cost each of us eight hundred quids.”

“What’s a couple hundred among bankers,” Bryon said as he threw out the last of the army of cups.  “Besides, Goldie treated us to a _damn_ nice restaurant tonight.”

And to John’s horror, all three of the blokes turned their eyes on him, expectantly.

_Fuck_ was all John could think of.

Marigold, bless her leather-grabbing hands, intervened by saying, “Now I love you all to bits and pieces, but get the hell outta here if you want to start grilling my boyfriend.”

“Dragon lady,” Dan clapped Marigold on her back and she tried her best to not stumble forward.

“Man, Goldie,” Theo said, stabilizing Marigold by hoisting her other arm, “and here I thought once you realize all of London had no eligible bachelors, I’d be next in line.”

John could not appreciate Theo’s humour, even if it had been one hundred twenty percent a joke.  But he felt very much an outsider as Marigold stood between these two tall, somewhat blocky blokes.

“Alright boys,” Bryon broke in, “Let’s all head out for a drink somewhere, and leave the lovebirds alone.”

“Yeah, I’m sure John here has got something to show Goldie in private,” Dan winked at him.

If Sherlock was twelve, then these men were fifteen at most.  Still, John managed to smile and wait until the lock distinctively clicked before turning to Marigold with what he hoped was a very rueful and puppy-like look.

She was also looking at him expectantly.

Wildly unfair, John thought, he didn’t even remember her _telling_ him that it was her birthday.

“My dinner was blocked off, but like I said last week, the night is all free.”

Shite, she had said that?

She narrowed her eyes, “You didn’t forget, did you?”

As utterly understanding (and even perhaps too encouraging and engaged) as Marigold was with the Work with Sherlock, she was still a normal human being who demanded attention and unnecessary shows on certain days.  For example, from her boyfriend on her birthday.  Didn’t Marigold even say that she hated birthdays since they reminded everybody of her age?  “Marigold, I’m so, _so_ sorry,” he hoped he sounded as sincere as he felt, “I don’t know how—it just slipped my mind.  I’m just, I don’t even know what to say.”

She stared at him.  “Don’t say anything then.”  She turned on her heel and stomped into the bedroom.

 “No, Goldie,” he immediately followed her into the room, nearly crashing into it when she slammed it forcefully, only able to slide his way with his abundant experience of near-collisions that were bad for him.  “I know I’ve fucked this one up, just let me make it up to you.”  _And don’t offer to walk her dog,_ his treacherous mind taunted him.  “Here, I’ll—”

“No really, don’t say anything.”  She refused to look at him, instead heading straight to her bed.

Oh god, was it beyond saving?

She pulled out the drawer and dropped a glass on the bedside table with a loud bang.  As she unscrewed a bottle of gin, she shot a grim look at John.  John wasn’t sure if she wanted him to speak up or not, so he chose to remain silent.  He didn’t know what to say anyway.

“Fine,” she eventually said, after a large gulp of the gin and tonic.  “Let _me_ talk instead.”

And here it came, the break-up speech.  John sighed, and he actually _liked_ this one.

“You are a complete moron,” she began viciously.

“I agree,” John admitted.

“How can you forget something like this?  It’s not like I didn’t drop enough hints on your head.”

He’d been… preoccupied. The clinic was getting busy around the season, and they had that case, the one with the recluse millionaire and his out-of-the-way chateau, which Sherlock refused to stay at so of course they spent hours driving back and forth every time.  He was sure Sherlock had already solved too—he had that smug look—but refused to give a straight answer because it was bothering Mycroft.  Sherlock was determined to catch this murderer in the act, and that meant staking out at the chateau when the water mill ran.  John had no idea what the water mill had to do with a murder case where every single suspect had an alibi, but when Sherlock demanded it…

“You know what,” Marigold said in a voice that John knew meant she was about to say something judgemental and final, “You’re bad for me.”

“Well,” he replied; what did being ‘bad’ for somebody even _mean_?  It was just a vague, catch-all phrase.

“You’re highly irresponsible,” apparently she could read his mind, because she started listing things off, “dysfunctional in stable life, utterly able to upheave any tender moment into an adrenaline fix, too encouraging of my vices because they make you think less of yours—”

John glanced at the glass in her hand, already mostly empty and being topped off.

“—your version of the Sunday best is not-a-sweater, which I’m surprised isn’t flamingo pink and leopard printed given your taste in clothes.  You barely _exist_ as a person without Sherlock, and then it is only as an audience.  That’s what you are: a pair of hands to clap for him and to masturbate me.”  She looked at him for dramatic effect.

John winced—if she had been hurling words like cannons at him, then this was more of an arrow straight to his heart.  He knew that Marigold was capable of some very hurtful words, but this…

“You’re not happy unless somebody’s screaming in your ear.  You’re violent beyond civilian life, and not all that just.  You’ve lived through the saddest part of your life and now you realize that it _wasn’t_ the saddest.  You curse when you mope and you can’t even understand the basic technology that is a credit card machine.  I wear the pants around here because _you never do_.”

He didn’t think he deserved _this_ much.  “This is meaningless,” he intervened, “just shallow abuse.”

“I’m shallow but you’re _vulgar_ ,” she snarled.

“ _I’m_ vulgar?”  John couldn’t stand it anymore, “You’d drink rubbing alcohol if it was the last thing in the world.”

“You say that as if I should be insulted by it,” she said haughtily.

“Any normal person with active taste buds would be.”

“That’s where you set the bar nowadays, is it?  Taste buds.”

He sighed, “I don’t want to fight,” he said, because he didn’t, and he wanted to be the mature one to stop this first.

But clearly she did, because she tossed her drink back and snapped, “You only ever want a fight.”

“Not with _you_!”  Lord, _women_!

“Right, forgetting my birthday isn’t picking a fight.  At all.”

“I didn’t _mean_ to, it’s not like I neglected it on purpose.”

“So it’s not first degree murder, it’s manslaughter.”

“Let’s not dramatize this.”

“Yeah?” she scoffed viciously, “I thought you would only understanding if I put it in terms of killing people, since that’s about all you’re good for.”

John fell silent.  Blood drained from his face, and he could see Marigold softening before him, as if realizing just now what she was saying, just remember what all his nightmares were and where the tremor in his hand came from.  “Yeah,” he admitted, half scornfully and half self-deprecatingly, “I do understand it.”

“I,” she began but didn’t finished.  Instead, she set her glass on the table and left it there.  She looked at him, strangely timid, almost fearful.

“It’s alright,” he forgave her.  Anger made her a monster, but at least it was a visible monster that turned back to his Marigold.

She didn’t say anything for a while.  A siren started outside, and the lights flashed as the car went by, illuminating her face and giving it strange colors for a second.  Her eyes were down and John sighed, the last bit of fight leaking out of him.  He never could take it when the barbed Marigold looked like a scolded little girl.  She refused to meet his gaze and reached out for the glass, her fingers circling the rim.

“You’re too good to me,” she said finally, tired.

“You are to me as well,” he admitted, sitting beside her and wrapping his arm around her, she letting him do so and even leaning into him a little.

“How did we come to rest here?”

He knew she wasn’t speaking literally.  “I’m not sure.”

“We can’t help what we say, can we?”

“Not more than we can change what happens to us.”

“Let’s sit in the dark.”

“Let’s.”

And they did, for what seemed like a long time, but also maybe not that long.  John couldn’t judge how time passed, at the edge of something dying (or was it just changing?), and a fan of possible words lying before them.  Another siren went by, and John didn’t even wonder about what it was chasing.  He was content to sit here, his arms around Marigold, whose hands were now getting cold, and just let the night go by.

“I always thought that I would have been better at being a cat,” Marigold declared with a forced chuckle, evidently through with the silent darkness.  “Except I don’t have night vision.”

“That’s what we invented light for,” John answered helpfully.

“We didn’t _invent_ light—”

“Marigold,” he said simply.

For once, she didn’t pursue it.  “The drinking helps,” she said, non-sequitur and vulnerable.

“I know,” he said ruefully, remembering a conversation he had long ago.

“I could stop if I wanted to, you know.”

“Hm,” he gave.

“I just don’t.”  She fidgeted his arms.  “I know that _sounds_ like what an alcoholic would say, but remember how I told you when my mom visited me a while ago, I had stopped drinking altogether?”

Mrs. Morstan visited two years ago, but yes, he did remember her telling him about, because she does it rather frequently.

“I mean, it hasn’t ever interfered with my work.”

That’s why he didn’t think it was a problem either.  Or at least until she started arguing that it wasn’t like this.

“And you know what I said?”

“Which part of it,” he asked dryly.

She cleared her throat, “I guess all of it.  I’m not going to apologize for saying it, because most of it is true, just worded pretty awfully.  I will apologize for how I said it though.”

“I apologize for what I said as well,” John said without putting as stringent a constraint on his apology.  He was used to apologizing.  He could tell Marigold wasn’t finished though—when she started, she always gave a monologue.

“I’m sorry because although everything I said is true, none of it is important.  You are a war hero and that’s already sexy without going into uniforms and guns.  You have a gun and you really don’t do much to cover up the smell of gunpowder and I like it.  You’re short, but stand and sit with such military precision that the height becomes you.  Your hair is so soft and scalloping and when it’s wet it curls so delightfully.  You can’t help the tremor in your left hand so I know when you’re bored.  You watch the shittiest TV shows and don’t mind me talking over every movie that we see.  You put milk in your tea and laugh when I wrinkle my nose in disdain and humor my rants about how milk destroys the flavor.  You have a British accent, and yes all Americans love that.  You don’t know a thing beyond high school literature and I love telling you about it with only a _smudge_ of condescension.  You have nightmares infrequently, and I will shoot _anything_ that wakes me up in the middle of sleep, but when I tally up this month’s nightmares and find it fewer than last month’s, there’s so much bubbling happiness inside of me that it roasts me whole.  You wear ugly sweaters and I _adore_ ugly sweaters, I sleep in them.  And most of all,” she whispered, “you give me a battlefield to run in, save me from the ennui that settled over me and engulfs my soul—just like how Sherlock saved you.  I love you as much as you love him.”

There was so much in that speech that he couldn’t handle right now, so he resorted to: “I’m not _actually_ gay, you should know—”

“Yes, but some things are beyond sex and gender, aren’t they?”

“I suppose… but that’s not the point.”

“And what can be greater than a willingness to die for a person?”

“Are you saying,” John was bewildered, “That you’ll _die_ for me?”

She squirms again, either embarrassed or discomforted.  “Nobody can _say_ that—it happens, or it doesn’t, but words are easy, words don’t mean shit.  But I … I think so,” a flicker of doubt flitted across her face, “although hopefully I’ll never know.”

He frowned.  “So?  What does it all mean?”

“That it’s okay.”

“The birthday?”

“Now you’re missing the point,” Marigold made a face.  “But sure; and other things that come with it.  I’m just saying that I’m alright with it.”

“Alright with _what_ , exactly?”  He had an idea of what she was getting at here, but he needed her to say it, to give birth to it via forming the words physically and therefore bringing them to life.

“Alright with always being second in your life, alright with Sherlock and his brilliance being your first love, alright with you breaking up romantic dinner plans to run off to maybe get shot at, as long as I can maybe get shot beside you.”

“Oh.”  He breathed out, “I’ve never had anybody say that before.”

“Yes, you’ve never met anybody so idiotic and addicted to adrenaline as you are.”

What else was there to do but kiss her there and then?

“I love you too, you know,” he said that night, too tired and happy to clean up the sheets or shower.

“I know,” she said, in a haze of sleepiness and dry throat, sprawled out beside him, careful to not touch any part of his body since her own had too much heat to begin with.  “And that’s enough for me.”

“You are a miracle,” he said, and it’s one of the moments that he meant the word.

She chuckled, “You’re really not helping my ego here.”

“Oh but I _mean_ it,” he pushed earnestly.

“I know.  But it’s not as miraculous as selfish really.”  She gave a little pause, like she always did when she knew she had the attention of her audience—a little manipulation that John found very endearing for some reason.  “When I’m with you, I feel like I just woke up from years of long sleep.  When I get to work, I feel the same way.  It’s like you and my work are the two realities that I skip to, alternating and keeping my head spinning.  I can’t tell which one is more real, but I like it.  A lot.  I can’t imagine going back to just one world now.”

“Hm,” he hummed, not placating but because he honestly had nothing to say to her.  His own world felt like that, except, like she rightly said, with Sherlock.  It was… strange, but utterly exhilarating to be in the same position for her.  In fact, he could go for another round.  He turned to look at her, but she was obviously still lost in the post-coital languor.

“In a couple of months,” she announced, half with fierce pride and half in wistfulness, “let’s take a vacation and rent some wooden cabin that absolutely gets _no_ reception.”

That was the first time that she had even mentioned the future— _their_ future—in passing.  John couldn’t help but feel like it was a promise, and that scared him a little, to be honest.

“I love you,” he declared again, this time with something of awe inside of him.  He had almost come to terms with not being able to love somebody—a slow and painful acceptance, but he was almost there—when she came in.  And of all the girls and women that he had declared love to, this was the least passionate and most profound one.

Marigold, like always, loved giving speeches.  “Love,” she said, “is strong for many reasons, and ours is no less so because of our logic—in our case, I would argue more so, because we always know what quality we wish to possess through our love.  Even at the peak of anger and disappointment, I know, in the back of my mind, the necessity of you, and exactly why I need you.  This irreplaceability is no longer the veiled illusion of love, but much more real and therefore tangible.  That is why I put up with all your faults that shine through even the romantic idealization—I'm not a saint, John, and of course you constantly running off is not _ideal_ in the sense that when I was sixteen I didn't spend my class time daydreaming about paying the bill to a supper that ended with the appetizer, braving through the looks that the waiters—or worse waitresses—give me.  But I stick around, because there are few things that offer an enjoyment as pure as cuddling on the couch and have you pulling me with you into the adventure, weaving danger with words.  For that, I love Sherlock.  For that, and many other things, we are the most mathematically stable triangle.”

A mathematically stable triangle—he liked the sound of that, and dreamed of perfectly drawn shapes that night. **  
**


	6. Too Loud a Solitude

**Part VII**

**Too Loud a Solitude**

_Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey._  
Without her you would not have set out.  
She has nothing left to give you now.

It worked beautifully for a while—like Marigold has said, stable.

They would occasionally spend the night together, at her place (there was never any question; he didn’t even want to even _think_ about Marigold and Sherlock clashing and the side that he would inevitable end up on).  This happened with an alarmingly low frequency for normal couples, but that was what made it so great.  He could live his life in 221B Baker Street.  Marigold’s busy work schedules prevented her from wanting any more, and she in turn was grateful that Sherlock kept him busy most of the time, so _he_ wouldn’t complain of _her_ lack of attention.

Even more rarely, Marigold would have an early night and John would have a late one.  That was when Marigold joined, much to Sherlock’s disapproval.  But one time she arrived just in time to throw her dry clothes on the hypothermic duo: Sherlock had tackled a suspect into the Thames and John of course followed headlong to assist him in the struggle.  She berated neither Sherlock’s risky behavior nor John’s recklessness, and instead admired both with silent, bright eyes as they awaited Lestrade’s team.  After that, Sherlock allowed her to come when she pleased, although his words did not grow any less derisive.

Marigold held it up unreasonably well, especially given her own pride.  But something must be said about having undeniable proof that the man was the more intelligent, that allowed her to take in his callousness with exasperation and concession.

Life was perfect for John.

Until the Fall.

**-.-.-**

He moved into her flat because he could not bear to walk through those doors.

There was much to be done, despite how people thought of death as the final end, a hard stop, but that wasn’t the case at all.  So much was left behind, and Marigold had to go around picking things up and putting things away, both the chemical sets and the emotional damage.

There were nights when he couldn’t sleep.  Those were worse than the nightmares; those nights, his thoughts took control and led him places where she couldn’t follow.

He grew a beard because he always nicked himself if he tried to shave.

He was lucky that Sarah didn’t fire him, although it was as if she did, the amount of work that he got through.

He couldn’t talk to Marigold’s roommates, because he could see the curiosity in their eyes, inquiring why a _friend_ dying could have such a lasting and damaging impact.

Eventually, they moved out on their own and he moved on, but it was called ‘eventually’ for a reason.

**-.-.-**

People looked at John with such looks, even though Sherlock was the one who died, and Mycroft was the one who lost a brother.  Marigold hated it, but it was more important that John hated it.

Sherlock might not have had a great opinion of her—or anybody really, except perhaps a grudging respect for his brother’s capacities, and John’s unwavering humanity—but he sure as hell expected all of them to carry on.  Marigold tried to remind them of this as gently and insistently as she could.

She arranged a funeral.  John wouldn’t like it, but they couldn’t live with so much grief and misplaced, delusional hope hanging over their heads like Damocles’ sword.  It was a small affair, with only Greg, Mrs. Hudson, and them.  Well, if ‘them’ was still a term, but Marigold seemed determined to keep it as one.  Sherlock’s elusive brother did not show up, but Marigold had no doubt that Mycroft knew of the procession.  John had leaned heavily on her the entire day, but his was a warm weight, and Marigold didn’t mind bearing it.

In the end, the strongest of them all was Mrs. Hudson.

**-.-.-**

It was the end to another year.  Signs in big, bold letters of 'SALE' started to spawn into the windows of the department stores, and blinking, tiny Christmas lights invaded every solid surface.  People rang bells at street corners and judged passersby hurrying pass, pretending to look at absolutely urgent messages on their phones or otherwise staring at the pavement as if fortunes could be read there.  Bright, empty boxes were being bought, as well as too many Santa hats.  The transformation of the city was so predictable that it had stopped being festive and instead people found it annoying.  There wasn’t much to do, despite an overwhelming feeling of having too much to do and not enough time, and the dichotomy made people feel at once antsy and snappish.  There was too much color on people in stark contrast to the barren, wintry trees and the grey, frozen concrete.  Pubs opened earlier and closed later.  Everybody knew a few couples who got back together for the holidays, and another few who fought over who should keep the dog.

Harry was one such person—of both the former and the latter, actually.  The one true love of her life came back into town to get together with family, and couldn’t resist Harry’s pathetic, babbling pleas.  The moment Claire caved in, Harry broke up with Ella via text, like a true bastard.  They didn’t have a dog (Harry scoffed at the implication of domestication that a dog suggested), but they did fight over a grossly elaborate Victorian sofa that had been bought at the height of their mutual affections.

John found the entire spectacle disgraceful.  It also happened every year like clockwork, and as with the festival lights, it had gone from being worrisome to simply tiresome.  At least he could count on a Christmas gift from Claire, which was certainly better than the stocking-stuffer-junk that Harry always got him.

There was going to be a holiday party for the hospital, one that Sarah didn’t particularly enjoy but approved of its spirit of tradition and camaraderie.  Ruby approved of the occasion for free drinks and a chance for the male members of the team to openly ogle at her legs, so she was left in charge of the logistics (nobody seemed to remember that event organization was part of her job description).  There were the usual timidly lewd jokes passed around in the men’s room, and a few dares that nobody expected to follow up on.

What was different this year from all the previous years was that Marigold was here.  (As replacement?  Thoughts were not his friends.)

She had her own work holiday party, of course, the no-expenses-spared type, but John hadn’t gone.  She had asked lightly, out of some sort of social contract, if he wanted to come with, one night as she was removing her makeup.  He had said no, and thought that he could see her shoulders relax.  She came home at seven in the morning, waking him up from a hazy morning dream as she stumbled in, swearing and hair reeking of alcohol and barbeque smoke.   A couple of people were behind her, and one man looked visibly disappointed when John walked out into the living room.  John vaguely felt that he should toughen up and show his soldier face, but it was so early and it honestly seemed to require so much effort.  The man left peacefully anyway—or as peacefully as a drunkard could, ramming into the wall at some point, rattling the wall painting frames with the impact of his thick, rugby body.

It took a full day for Marigold to recover, and it wasn’t until the next morning that John could turn on the lights or open the curtains.  She was wordlessly apologetic, and either as atonement or punishment, she said she would come to the hospital party.

John had said that she didn’t have to, that he didn’t even want to go himself, but Marigold insisted.

He shrugged and said okay, much like the way that Sarah had persuaded him into going in the first place.

Marigold spent half an hour trying to decide on what to wear—the Oscar de la Renta gown was far too ceremonial, the Hervé Leger bandage dress too tight, the Tibi not tight enough.  In the end, she went with a lacy Valentino frock, sparkly Manolo heels, and an even more sparkly Judith Leiber clutch.  John told her that nobody at the party would know these names that she just hurled at him, but she kissed his cheek and said don’t worry, she’ll work it into the conversation.

John wasn’t worried—he was just faintly apprehensive that Marigold would be disappointed by his associated persons.  He mulled over this fermenting apprehension, his fingers stroking the edge of the phone nestled deep in his pocket, until he finally pulled it out and texted Greg—because Marigold seemed to get along with Greg.  She should have at least one person she could talk to.

Sarah opened the door when Marigold rang the doorbell.  The party was held at Sarah’s house, for both convenience and budget.  John briefly wondered if there was still a key under the third loose stone in the flowerbed, filled with—what was it again?  Some flower that Marigold also liked, a homely sort, which was why he remembered because it was so unlike Marigold to be so understated.  Sarah was dressed in a bright red dress that looked familiar to John.  Or maybe all dresses felt familiar—he knew that whenever Marigold bought a new one, he felt like she already had something similar in her large closet.  Marigold hugged Sarah—with the added advantage of four inched heels, Marigold was actually about Sarah’s height (and very close to John’s own, his mind squeamishly added).  They exchanged pleasantries—how was Sarah’s family, was Marigold going back to America, was the hospital business carrying along, general things that neither cared about, standing in the doorway, where the thick, heated air from inside swirled with the cold outdoors, a dancing struggle surrounding the two women.

John waited patiently until it was his turn to be civil to the hostess.  When Sarah turned her face towards him, he complimented her on the decoration and the aroma of food, although he could neither see nor smell the inside of the house.  She good-naturedly jested that it was nice to see him out of a jumper and in a proper suit.  John nodded to be amicable, and attributed the good taste to Marigold.

After this ritual was completed, Sarah glided back into the hallway and beckoned them in.

The house was much as he remembered—Sarah was not the home improvement type.  The hallway was still too dark to properly hang one’s coat, the light from upstairs still spilled down the stairs in splattered spots, and the kitchen vent still whirred in the background.  It looked quite different though, with some of the furniture squashed to the edges of the living room, and there was a lot of glossy, bright confetti that looked like it belonged at some fourteen-year-old’s birthday party that her parents set up.  Sarah had removed the one replica painting she brought from the Tate Modern museum’s gift store (some ugly piece of Pollock)—she didn’t even like it, but the frame had been expensive.

“What had been there?” Marigold asked him quietly.  There was a telling white space where the painting used to be.

John shrugged, “Pollock.”

Marigold wrinkled her nose, “Ugh.  People need to buy art and not what they think other people will think is art.”

John chuckled when he once would have laughed.

Marigold looked around the room and nodded to some of his coworkers that she had met before.  She had started to occasionally show up at the clinic, for half an hour or a whole one if she could afford it, when she wasn’t busy during the day.  The first time, Ruby had taken her for a patient and was halfway through starting a file for her when John came out.  During the brief five minutes, somehow they rubbed each other the wrong way, and have been subtly hostile ever since.  Ruby was actually not a hard woman to get along with—it usually only took a still tongue, but that was not one of Marigold’s strength’s.  Indeed, when Marigold nodded to Ruby, her nose slightly higher than it perhaps should have been, Ruby immediately took it as a challenge.  Or perhaps Ruby saw Marigold’s appearance as a challenge.  Marigold did put some of his coworkers at ill ease: she had a certain bearing, always wore heels, and carried herself over London puddles with great dignity and distain, and most people saw that as—well, for a lack of a more positive term, snobby.

Which, if John was being honest, Marigold certainly was.  Marigold saw parties as an occasion to assert herself—not in a bad way, she was just more socially benign at the start, and more abrasive but honest at the end.  John, of course, liked parties, even though Sh—

“Do you want a drink?” he asked Marigold.

She looked at him knowingly and said, “Sure,” a seemingly offhand consent while her hand squeezed his gently.

He didn’t know where the makeshift bar was, but walked towards the densest part of the crowd.  (His treacherous mind finished, —Sherlock had always sulkily and derisively called it ‘fraternizing’)  When he passed by Grace, she was saying, “That hurricane in Miami sure is something.”  As he poured a drink, he could hear Sarah as her companion the exact same question.  It felt like he was stuck in a loop.

He poured two glasses of the sauvignon (which would taste like boxed wine), nearly to the brim.  Carrying these precarious weapons of mass bleeding in his hands, he wove through the crowd, bumping into nearly everybody in his path.  Each time, he bobbed the stem of the glass a little to maintain balance, and the other person gave a little squeamish squeal.

Marigold was engaged in dynamic conversation with Oliver, Sarah’s new boyfriend.  Well, they’ve been together for a couple of months, but it felt new because it felt like the past few months didn’t happen.  They were talking about some sort of a ‘buy-in’, and John didn’t like the way Oliver’s eyes crinkled up and laugh lines wrinkled his mouth every time Marigold said something.

John looked around.  Despite being coworkers with these people, he didn’t want to talk to any of them.  Marigold was by far the more sociable one, greeting people, touching their shoulders or batting their arms playfully, laughing and sharing witty repartee, swirling her wine when she wasn’t sipping.  John tried to take comfort in the fact that probably only he knew the wine was spiked (so crass, but the wine itself was crassly bad to begin with).

John couldn’t think of anything to say to anybody beyond a general complaint about the weather.  He took his glass and leaned against the wall—it might be his military training, but he felt a lot better with his back covered by the impenetrable wall.  He took out his phone but he didn’t really have anybody to text, and the blue, garish light of his phone screen probably made his face alien.

“Did you hear about Hurricane Mary in Miami?” Henry snuck upon John, gulping down a mouthful of beer and grinning widely.  Henry had that sort of face that looked perpetually chipper and awed, with round eyes under arching eyebrows, and a face that stretched too widely when he smiled.  His whole cheerful demeanor offended John right now, so John nodded and glumly stared back at his phone.  He had an old version of Angry Birds, didn’t he?

Seeing that John was disinclined to answer, Henry took another sip and commented, “I have an aunt in Miami, actually.”  It had never occurred to Henry, in his thirty-odd years of life, that anybody did not want to talk to him.  Whenever a silence fell, he just casually called the other person a taciturn old chap.

“Hm,” John hummed discouragingly, opening the app store to find Angry Birds.

“I’d probably get what, a fifth of her inheritance if, you know, the hurricane took her.” Henry bit down on the cusp of his empty beer cup.  Henry wasn’t a _bad_ person—just unsatisfied with life.  He liked two complaints before his morning coffee, and looked forward to the ten-fifteen smoke breaks with more longing than he should, having three lung cancers in the family.  He had little sympathy for tragic news, but made annual donations to various small-fund charities.  He tried to pick off the peperoni pieces on pizzas when others weren’t looking.  He wore jeans a size too large and a shirt a size too small.  The sort of people that one expected to know in middle-age.  John knew Henry well, which was why he knew to keep humming.

Indeed, after a few half-hearted comments, Henry retreated when he couldn’t find the normally easily-agreeable John.

John had been working with the same people for a long time now—or at least a long time by his standards.  Before this, uni was the last time he had spent any substantial time with the same group of people.  In the war, he was the surgeon and everybody came and went.  After that, he flitted from job to job for a while, before he settled on this.  He supposed that it was the point of these grown-up jobs though, that everybody grew to know everybody else, from their preferred color of underwear to their eating habits, but there was no more than that.  Everybody was woefully the same, replicable and replaceable down to their last quirks.  He hated this feeling that’d haunted him for a while now.  He wasn’t sure what was worse, the flailing in his nightmares or waking up from it to see the world again.

He walked over to the bar and took a long pull straight from the tequila bottle, despite there being a pair of perfectly good lowball tumblers on the table.

“Jesus, I’m not going to ask how _your_ night’s been,” Greg surprised him when he put the handle down.

John shrugged.  “It’s been fine.”

Greg snorted, “Like hell.”  He looked good in a spiffy suit, John thought.  Greg rarely took this much care in his appearance.

“Where’s your date?” John asked.

“Looking for one here—what do you think,” he gestured to his metallic grey suit and slim-cut shirt, “this is all for?”

“Your wife?”

Greg grimaced, “As they say in the oldies, I’ve been served.”

“Oh,” John grimaced in response, “sorry.”

Greg patted him on the shoulder, “Nothing to it, it’s been coming.”

“Doesn’t help either way,” John said sadly.

They looked at each other for a while.

“So, uh,” Greg started, “how was your day?”

“You’ve asked it already.”

“Oh,” he scratched his head, “uh, nice party, I guess.  I like the rug.”  He kicked the recently cleaned carpeting.

John nodded.   Then he felt obliged to say something, and so he cleared his throat.  “I hear there was a hurricane in Miami,” he repeated.

Greg winced, “Mate, aren’t we past that?  I’ve been talking about nothing but bloody Miami and the bloody weather for the last half hour.”

“Sorry,” John apologized.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Greg awkwardly scratched his head.  “How’s Marigold?”

John tilted his glass to the left, “She’s right there.”

“John you oaf, I’m just trying to get you warmed up into an actual _conversation_ , of course I know she’s—holy shite, who’s _that_?”

John followed Greg’s whispered and not too subtle movements, and could see Ruby flipping her wispy blonde hair.  “Our receptionist, at the clinic,” John answered.

Greg wolf whistled.  “How do you do work with _her_ around?”

It wasn’t a serious question, so John didn’t give an answer.

“It’s a shame for a woman like that to not be acquainted with a gentlemanly officer,” Greg wiggled his brows.

“… Do you want me to introduce you?” John asked with a sinking stomach—god, he had to _talk_ to people now?

“Why, if you insist, it would be rude of me to refuse.”

“Not sure if I’d be the best to do that,” John said frankly.

Greg tapped his nose, “Better than nobody else.”

“Maybe,” John admitted, and allowed himself to be escorted to Ruby.

“Hi there,” Ruby greeted them with a happy, tipsy smile, her thin face half concealed beneath a veil of blonde hair.  She looked very pretty tonight, and it was just the sort of bubbly, WASP-y prettiness that Greg liked.

“Ruby, this is Greg, a friend of mine in the Scotland Yard.  Greg, Ruby, our receptionist.”

“Administrative assistant,” Ruby corrected, “John just likes teasing me so.”

“Part of my job is administrative too,” Greg nodded, swirling his drink and downing it in one manly gulp.  “Would you like another drink?”

Ruby hesitated for longer than it was polite, but eventually she conceded.

Greg grinned and mumbled a quick ‘Be right back’, and disappeared into the crowd.

“So,” Ruby drawled, “what does he do, exactly?”

“Uh, Greg, you mean?” John gestured to where Greg disappeared.

“Well I didn’t get his _name_ , proper, but yeah, your friend.”

He did give her his name, but no matter.  “He’s a detective inspector.”

“Ohh, that sounds _fancy_.  So what does he _do_?”

John shrugged.  “A lot of paperwork, occasional drug busts, a couple of high profile cases a while back, but mostly a lot of paperwork that he fails to do.”

Ruby twirled her head and had a thoughtful expression.  “Cops are always _dangerous_ and fun—well, the ones without a pot belly, that is.  Bit rare.  Is he married?  He’s probably married.  I never date an _unmarried_ older man, you know: if they can’t even get married, then you _know_ there’s something wrong with the bloke.”

John couldn’t take it anymore.  He had to leave, _now now NOW_.  None of these people was deeper than a finger’s width.  He pushed past a pensive Ruby, rushed through the thinning crowd, and ran outside.

Marigold saw him dash and ran after him, not bothering to apologize to her companion.  He had been boring anyway.

“John,” she called out after him, voice kept low and with warning, “get a hold of yourself.”

“I—it’s not—I can’t—” he began.

“I _know_ ,” she said impatiently, “but you can’t.  C’mon, you’ve always been good at thinking about other people—just be painfully self-aware of everybody staring out the window right now.”

He blinked.  “They’re staring out the window?  At us?”

She sighed, “No, they’re too busy boozing.  It’s a thought experiment.”

“Oh.”

“ _John_ , it’s still early.  We can get properly smashed still.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Well,” Marigold looped her arm around his, “what do you want to do then?  A movie?  Take-out?  I’m not eating fake Chinese food in greasy cardboard boxes again, mind you.  How about we go to Great Queen Street?  I’m craving their rabbit pie, and the theater is showing a new superhero movie.”

“I don’t particularly feel like watching some dumb _actor_ in a costume pretending they’re saving the world.”

Marigold shrugged, evidently used to this, “We can just re-watch some Doctor Who at home or something, how’s that?”

John was silent for a moment, before grumbling sulkily, “I don’t know why you stay with me.”

“I thought that is well explained to death,” Marigold said saucily, her left hand going to her hip.

“Well yes,” John said, “Except it’s _different_ now.”

“Right,” Marigold agreed, “It’s now winter instead of summer.”

John looked at her pointedly.

She gave a sound halfway between a sigh and a scoff, “Fine.  Well what do you mean then?”

“I just—well—it’s that, now that all the adventures are gone with, with…”

“John, my own sweet idiot,” she said with a fond exasperation, “so _what_?”

“So that what you had liked about me—you know, _his_ part—is gone, so there’s really nothing much left.”

“Look, if I had been after Sherlock, I would have _gone_ after Sherlock.  I’m not one to settle for seconds, you should know that by now.”

“I’m not saying that you’d _like_ him, it’s just that,” he cleared his throat, “I have enough self-awareness to know that I’m fundamentally changed now.  Don’t you feel like it’s not what you signed up for?”

“John Watson.  Know that whatever Sherlock was—is—to you, you are the same to me.”

“That’s exactly my point!” John said exasperatedly, “I’m not much of myself anymore.”

“Have I ever told you,” she interrupted forcefully, “that I got a pot of Kurinji shrub once, when I was young?  I thought the flowers were pretty and of course had to own it, so I goaded my mom into letting me take care of it.  After two weeks, the flowers wilted.  I got angry, but I thought it would bloom again next year, so I kept it.  Of course, Kurinji is a plietesial, one that blooms every twelve years, but I didn’t know that.  Come next year, it was still flowerless, but I still had the incredible youthful capacity for hope, and continued caring for it.  It never bloomed, but I stopped caring after a while.”

“Are you trying to say that you’ve grown used to me or that you’ve spent too long caring for me to back out?”

“Neither, or both, maybe.  I don’t know.  It’s just what I did.  Does it matter?”

John looked at her for a long while, and felt, for the first time in what seemed like forever, to slowly rise out of a sticky film of apathy and hold a spark of human understanding.  “I guess not,” he said eventually.

**-.-.-**

It was not until months later that he got her a ring, but nobody was surprised.

What _did_ surprise people was that she said yes.


	7. Reaching Ithaca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And if you find her poor, Ithaka has not deceived you.  
> Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,  
> you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

**Part VII**

**Reaching Ithaca**

Pistachio, steel blue, and apple green, John told himself.  Pistachio, steel, apple.  Pistachio, steel, a—ah _ha_!  Here was a sort of pistachio-ish tablecloth, wasn’t it?

“That’s lime, honey,” Marigold piped up beside him.

“Oh,” John put it back, disappointed.

“Soon,” Marigold promised.

John shrugged, “It’s fine; this is like an observational adventure.”

Marigold gave him a peculiar look before going back to the folds of tablecloth inside the department store.

John cleared his throat.  “How about this then?” he picked up a chartreuse fabric—yes, really, he knew what _chartreuse_ was now.

“Less yellow, less bright,” she commented, “This is for putting plates and spilling wine on, not neon po-mo art.”

John hadn’t really expected her to agree, he just wanted to divert her attention.  He knew that when she got a look like that, she was going to phone up his therapist soon.  Which was silly—he hadn’t gone to Ella in forever; he hadn’t _needed_ her lumpy couch and scratchy calligraphy that tilted _just_ so that he could read it upside down so that she could catch him reading it upside down.  There were a few productive sessions earlier—like the one where he talked about how he felt like life was a buggy computer simulation game like _The_ _Sims_ except stuck in a loop and how he was sure he had to be told to go to the toilet in order to summon the energy to do so— but that was a very, very long time ago.  He honestly couldn’t even remember what he talked about with Ella most of the time.

“Actually, it’s good enough,” Marigold exclaimed all of a sudden.  “You know I don’t even _care_ about tablecloth—I mean, who _does_?”

John thought he could see somebody who slouched just like Anderson over at the other corner, but Marigold had already taken the package and he had to help with—god, how many guests did they have again?—what seemed like the entire floor’s supply of tablecloth.  Marigold had a _very_ large extended family and Harry took it a challenge to fill his side to no fewer people.

John concentrated on the cloths to avoid thinking about how Harry was going to ruin his wedding.

**-.-.-**

He was _not_ paranoid, John told himself triumphantly as he held out the piece of paper to Marigold.  It had appeared in their living room before the mail was to be delivered today, sitting on top of a book that Marigold had left open last night, and made absolutely no sense to John.  It _had_ to be Harry—she was the only other person that he entrusted an emergency pair of keys to.

“Yes?” Marigold raised her eyebrows and mumbled through a mouthful of orange-flavoured toothpaste.

“Look at it,” he said, almost gleefully.  Harry was not usually enigmatic, but she obviously had been planning on a large scale of destruction since they were teenagers.

“Okay,” she shrugged and took it with her left hand.

The paper was a post-it note in a rather rare color—a darkish blue that was rather bad for writing on since the contrast was low.  John had actually never seen this color, but he assumed that it was some backed up inventory or something.  The funny thing was that it was typed up—he would recognize Harry’s handwriting otherwise, she had such loopy nines—and said, ‘147197114 70130180 1411820’.

He had searched it online and flipped through two encyclopaedias that morning already, before Marigold decided to wake up for the beautiful noon.  No part of the sequence appeared anywhere.  Harry probably just made it up, to spite him, but John couldn’t help his blood boiling from its dormant sleep.  Maybe some sort of World War II code, or at least some Girl Scout—

“What are you doing with our color palette,” Marigold asked, her words slurred.

“What?” John asked.

She held up a hand and ran into the washroom.  A few seconds late, she was back, with just a bit of foam to the corner of her mouth.  “Our wedding palette: these are the RGB codes.”

“Oh,” John said, “Really?”

She threw him a look of ‘what, you _don’t_ have them memorized?’ and John smartly shut up.

Okay, maybe he _was_ paranoid then, but nobody could blame him for getting worked up.  It was probably pre-wedding jitters manifesting in a weird way.

**-.-.-**

John didn’t understand why people got divorced and remarried—surely the first time experience was enough to traumatize them?

His own wedding was big, messy fiasco.  Harry gathered everybody from his work colleagues to obscure military training buddies, to even his uni classmates and his _coach_.  She had, of course, her own circle of artsy, libertine friends, and had encouraged Claire to bring _her_ circle of friends.  As if walking down the aisle was not nerve-wrecking enough, he now had to deal with awkward reunions after years of no contact.  And yes, it _had_ been Anderson in the department store because he had the same beard and yes, Harry had managed to invite _him_ as well.  It was a miracle that his elementary teachers escaped her clutches.

However, despite her best efforts, Harry could not outmatch Marigold.  Everybody from her co-workers (a lot of them) to her distant cousins and relatives (even more of those) to her roommates (who brought _their_ friends) to even one of her ex-boyfriends (who had conveniently been in town; just lovely).  Of course, the person of most interest to John was Finn the ex, who was a tall, large bloke with a mop of blond hair, and looked like he was the sort to miss uni life too much.  He hadn’t had the chance to speak with Finn yet, beyond a passing hello as he was introduced to everybody present, but John thought that he did a good job of a withering, wordless warning.

The venue was good, compared to what few wedding venues that John had experienced before.  It was spacious—or at least was before the invasion of wedding attendees—and appropriately decorated, if a little too, well, pastel, and maybe a few too many flowers.  John wasn’t as fond of flowers as he once was as a teenager—he had been ah, well, the sentimental sort of boy, there was no way around that.  He’d bike for an hour to get to his sweetheart for thirty minutes, and he’d bring flowers that he plucked from the ride, being poor as well as young.  His sweetheart had never enjoyed receiving them as much as he did the giving, but that was neither here nor there.  It had been a while, though, since he looked at flowers without the overwhelming shadow of a tombstone.

No, John, he told himself, today was one for _happy_ thoughts.

And indeed, he was very happy when he scanned the sitting crowd.  There was Mrs. Hudson, dabbing her eyes with a freshly-scented handkerchief and leaning in towards Harry, who herself was a little bright-eyed.  Mrs. Turner, Mrs. Hudson’s friend (the landlord with the ‘other couple’, as she liked to say) was to her other side, smoothing her dress fastidiously and turning around to check the entrance every other minute.  There was Sarah, who had her hands clasped between her boyfriend Olivier’s, who was actually looking a little anxious—might be commitment issues, or he might be padding a ring inside his left breast pocket.  There was each of Marigold’s roommates, with their respective girlfriends—Dan’s bird was much too pretty for him.  There was Logan, stick-thin and ropy-haired as always, who had flown in again from wherever he was, sitting next to Finn the ex and giving him the cold shoulder—John liked Logan more now.  Finn himself was being chatty and honestly, pretty happy in general; John supposed it was a rare sort of _amicable_ breakup, much like Sarah and his (although it took a while to get there).  There was Ruby the receptionist, and what would you know, sitting next to Greg and looping her arm through his arm.  John was pretty sure Greg winked at him.  Anderson was in the back and John managed a smile at the man, who heaved out a sigh as if he was cleansing the very depth of his lungs.  The blokes from the clinic were in the back, but John couldn’t catch their eyes.  The kid from Marigold’s firm, the one who had passed John her car keys, did a little awkward wave when John saw him, and John in return nodded just a little.  Molly— _Molly_ was here too, second from the aisle, her cheeks flushed and biting her lips.  John hadn’t seen much of Molly since—she didn’t take to it very well either, and managed to avoid most of her former acquaintances—or at least, their mutual acquaintances, John supposed, although he rather suspected that Molly didn’t have many other friends.  She did seem to bring a date though, that was good, who was turned to smell Molly’s hair, and the sight made John feel very happy for Molly.  Donovan sat at the opposite corner of Anderson, her hair down and smoothed, and she looked good, if a little tired, the way she always looked when she was trying to stop Greg from doing something.  Mike Stamford—bless his big, big heart—seemed to be even bigger now, and was chatting in a bubbly manner with his next door neighbour, a stiffly dressed man in a very subtly plaid suit and gleaming tie clip, nodding along to Mike’s incessant verbal deluge with surprising grace.  Bill Murray was with a couple of his mates from the military, and grinned at him when he looked over, the big, fat grins that they used to give each other at the end of each day, still alive and ready for the sacks.  And there was Angelo, unashamedly taking up two seats with his body and his wife’s bag, rivets of tears running down his cheeks as his wife pulled out one tissue after the other from her bag.  A few of the old clients were scattered in the crowd as well, notably Henry Knight who seemed very close to crying himself, and Ceylan Hassan’s brother, who was busy tweeting (but of course).  Mycroft was absent, but Anthea—Althea, Alyssia, whatever she felt like calling herself today—was typing away at her phone as always, and John was sure that at least three of the surveillance feeds were turned on him as of the moment.

It felt like his entire life was here, documented by how these people looked at him.

The music started—and the door opened.

She was painfully beautiful, John thought.  She had been on a diet and had been working out more in the past month, and it showed in her arms and her glowing skin, although the flush could be makeup or her own excitement.  Getting married could get one excited, you know.  Her dress was some rental designer thing—Marigold was too practical to get bogged down by the romantics of owning her own once-in-a-lifetime dress—but it fitted her like it had been hand-tailored for weeks.

She smiled at him, a quickly blooming smile that stretched her entire face and brightened her entire person, and John could feel himself mirroring her smile.  She took small steps to the music, and to John, it looked like she was floating towards him.

One, two, three to Paganini’s Cantabile 17.

She floated past the last row, Anderson and Donovan on each corner like two vigilant gargoyles, careful not to let their gaze coincide.

_The first time Anderson and Donovan met Marigold, they decided that she was a lost cause as well, just like John.  John supposed that it was a compliment, in a roundabout way, given how things turned out.  It was just after that case when he asked her out, after a near-death experience with train tracks.  She had to come in to make statements after all, despite slipping away before Greg and the team showed up.  Anderson and Donovan tried to convince her of the dangers of associating with John, of course._

_“Despite that he’s a good man, and I_ am _fond of him,” Donovan had said prior to realizing that John was just around the corner, “he_ is _a menace to you, without even realizing it, the poor, daft thing.”_

_“Oh,” Marigold had said in a lilting tone, “and you’re not quite daft yourself, you think?”_

_John could hear the frown in Anderson’s voice as he said, “At least less so than you, if you continue to come back to this psychopath’s sidekick.”_

_“Who’s to say I don’t want to be Batgirl?” she joked._

_The joke was lost on the other two, but John gave her a chuckle and a grateful if surprised look._

She floated past Mike, whose smartly dressed neighbour turned and positively _beamed_ at her.  Her eyes were flitting across the room as she walked, so she caught his eyes and gave him a delighted smile, the kind that promised a secret in its depths.

_John remembered now: he had met this man before.  Sven worked at Shad Sanderson (same firm as Sebastian Wilkes, the sod), a director in Healthcare.  Sven and Marigold had started on the same team the same year, and had always been close in their year.  When Marigold left, Sven had stayed, and eventually moved to the headquarters in London.  Sven had been one of the first friends that Marigold introduced John to, although John hadn’t seen Sven since.  It was with that dinner that John knew he passed the first milestone.  Sven had been quiet among the people, chewing and going outside frequently for calls and smokes—that was why John didn’t remember him well.  But John remembered there was one moment, when Marigold left for the washroom, when Sven suddenly looked him in the eye and asked him what he did with all the free time when Marigold wasn’t there._

_John had shrugged it off as chit-chat phrased oddly, and answered, “I sometimes help with the Yard if there’s a particularly tough case.”_

_Sven hummed pensively and John thought he was scowling faintly.  “You’re a private detective,” he declared._

_“No, no,” John laughed at the easy mistake, “You might say I’m the assistant to the Consulting Detective the Yard calls on.  World’s only.”_

_“Ah,” Sven seemed more at ease now that he felt like he had figured out the puzzle, “So you’re that duo who appears in the papers sometimes.  No wonder.  Goldie’s always had a macabre fascination with crime-solving.”_

_John would have liked to hear more, but Marigold returned and so the conversation flowed back to its proper place—that was, without embarrassing stories of Marigold’s youth.  He’d get them someday, John remembered thinking placidly, and as she sat down he laid a hand on her back, rubbing his thumb where the last of her rib was._

_She smiled at him, but the lopsided quirk of her lips was as if she was saying she knew exactly what he was up to._

She floated past Molly, who was a little twitchy, and patted the date on the arm.  Molly’s date swatted Molly’s hand away, but Molly was already looking at her, enveloped in a swathe of gauze, her nails deep crimson against the white lace of the bouquet, her shoes a matching tip beneath the hem of her dress.  John thought that this was what Molly wanted to look like one day, perhaps.

_It was surprising that Molly and Marigold never got along, given Molly’s obsession with cats and Marigold’s soft spot for all pets that she didn’t have as a child.  Be it dogs or cats, or even lizards, Marigold loved them all without ever having to scoop up wet poop.  Molly had Toby the cat—and then a few others, in quick succession.  Marigold had explained that cats were like new handbags, or weed—it was difficult to stop indulging after the start.  Despite such a common theme to bond on, they never did—well, women were always very strange creatures._

_In fact, John remembered one occasion when Marigold actually tried to be friends with Molly—which was something that Marigold rarely did.  John had appreciated the effort, although he didn’t deem it necessary.  Marigold had spurned his offer to come along, asserting that it was a ‘girls’ day out’—in fact, she showed him the spreadsheet planner she made for the day, and John was happy to left out of a lot of shopping and dessert shops._

_Except Marigold returned that night utterly exhausted, without a single victorious item, and had hotly inquired, “God, why is she so_ nervous _all the time?”_

_John had laughed—it was a good question—but answered honestly and good-naturedly, “She spends most of her time with dissected carcasses, mind you.”_

_“Exactly, one would think she’d have some gusto.  Be a sweetheart and bring out the Bordeaux?”_

_“Being dead makes one mostly harmless.”  He brought out two._

_She brightened at the sight of the bottles but her tongue was still sharp as she scoffed, “And I’m the girl who discovered the answer to life, the universe, and everything.”_

_Then they grinned at each other, a simple allusion becoming an intimate inside joke so easily._

She floated past Bill and the boys, who unanimously stood up as she walked by and saluted her, a proper salute like they hadn’t done in a long while.  It was not proper protocol, and a little flippant in John’s opinion, but Marigold was having trouble stifling a giggle, and so it was alright by him.

_John had taken her to a war memorial procession once, the sort of social event where one could bring somebody.  That was when she discovered how he got his army nickname ‘Blondie’.  Bill thought it was a hoot to tell her that the fittest nurse in their forward operating base went out on a date with him because she “liked his hair”.  Never mind that he wasn’t even blond, the nickname had only caught on with a few of his close friends.  But the nurse_ was _fit, and he lost a second reminiscing, of which did not escape Marigold.  She narrowed her eyes slightly, but laughed and went along with it in front of his mates, not showing even the tiniest hint of unseemly jealousy.  His mates were all jealous of him_ again _, saying he had all the luck in the world, with such a sweet, tolerant girlfriend.  Little did they know the trouble that he got in when they got home._

She floated past Logan, who swatted Finn away and rose to wave.  Logan was scrunching his face, and another person might have thought he was glowering, but he was also sniffing loudly.

_Right before Logan left last time he was here, John drove Logan back to the airport.  Marigold had sat with him in the back, and they had reminisced about uni life the entire way.  At the drop off, John pretended that he couldn’t hear Logan and Marigold both crying and trying not to cry at the parting like some teenaged lovers.  John felt like his very breathing was an intrusion, and he didn’t like this sense of strange intimacy, even if the bloke liked other blokes.  John didn’t really get how this friendship came to be—but he supposed that she felt the same way about some of his mates._

She floated past Greg, who looked at her with soft fondness, as if she was a daughter, or the lingering memory of his first young bride.

_She had once asked John how he fell into this rabbit hole of Scotland Yard, and he told her.  He told her the story from the beginning, all the way, from how, “I first enlisted fresh out of Uni, right after I got my license.  I left behind a girl, but I couldn’t care—at least not enough, and definitely in a cruel way.  Her name was Annabel—”_

_Marigold had snorted.  She couldn’t help it, she really couldn’t—but Annabel Lee, the death of a young, beautiful girl, Edgar Allen Poe’s fascination with death—the irony of it got to her, and a puffy chuckle escaped her.  She immediately grimaced apologetically, and John went on._

_“Some people jump out of airplanes, some people go bungee jumping, and some have sex with strangers in alleyways hoping to get caught; I joined the army.  My therapist—the old one, in the army, not the one now, she doesn’t know anything—told me it’s called risk addiction.  ‘Crave varied, intense sensations and experiences’, was what he said.  That was nice of him.  I’d have just said I enjoy being shot at.  Until I actually got shot, of course, and couldn’t go back to being shot at anymore.  All my days turned repetitious, predictable, and I was depressed.  Clinically depressed.  Could have made a bit of pocket change by dealing anti-depressants, actually.  Doctors are very easily convinced to give a veteran oxy prescriptions, let me tell you.”_

_“I wouldn’t mind the extra pocket money,” she had answered._

_He looked at her quizzically, “Should this soul-searching story get more of a rise out of you?”_

_“What were you expecting?  Or what do you want to see?” she probed._

_“I guess,” he waved with no particular purpose, “it’s like, I guess I opened up and I expected more of a mothering sympathy.”_

_“I’m not very good at that,” she stated, “But I can get you some chocolate cookies if you want?”_

_He laughed, feeling better.  And maybe that was her intention.  Or maybe not.  Did it matter?_

She floated past Harry, who was trying hard to not look too touched, but her hand that was clasping Claire’s was white-knuckled.  John would say that Harry could, if she wanted, but he supposed it wasn’t his question and it wasn’t her answer.

_John could remember telling Harry about Marigold, before they met.  It had been a dinner that Harry demanded when she figured that it was beginning to get serious with Marigold, now that Marigold hadn’t dumped his arse in a couple of months.  Marigold had been running late, so Harry and he were waiting for her at the door because it was one of those snobby restaurants that wouldn’t sit the party until every member was present.  Harry had been uncharacteristically understanding of Marigold’s tardiness, and even was a little bashful, in her own way (which was to be very loud and inquisitive).  He had told her, “Well, she’s a bit on the small side, a little shorter than you, but always seems taller because she wears heels, and when she wants to she takes up a lot of space.  Really dark hair, and matching eyes.  She’ll show up in something much more business formal than either one of us owns.  Unfortunately she’s so used to being late that she’s pretty much desensitized to it, so don’t expect too much sincerity in her apology.”_

_“John you dumb idiot,” Harry had interrupted, “I’ll get to see what she_ looks _like when she comes, I meant what’s she_ like _, you know, as a_ person _.”_

_“Oh, well,” he had frowned to collect a summary, “She’s very straightforward, at least with non-business associates.  My kind of humour, if a little biting at times.  Actually,” he admitted, “always a bit biting.  She’s very judgmental and not at all afraid to say it.  She’s rather snappish really, especially when she’s overworked.”_

_Harry had laughed, to which he asked what for.  She answered, “Sounds like the type of person you’d like.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, beginning to get peeved._

_“Nothing,” she immediately defended, “just that all the people you get along with are bad-tempered.  You know, like your roommate, like your girlfriend, like your sister.”_

_“I wouldn’t say we ‘get along’,” he dryly remarked._

_She shrugged, “You don’t ‘get along’ with Sherlock—you live with him.”_

_Which was—had been—true, so he allowed her a wine while waiting._

John could spend forever remembering the things about Marigold, and forever trying to picture what they would do in the future.  But before she could float to him, a white promise of happiness, everything went bright and loud in a familiar, unsettling way that was definitely _not_ supposed to happen at a wedding.

KABOOM.

When John opened his eyes again, he was very confused.  He was confused because the front door—the tall, thick doors in polished white lacquer—were no more.  What remained of the wood hinges were in flames—tall, orange flames that licked the walls.  There was a lot of screaming going on, which one didn’t necessarily expect at weddings.  There was some shouting beyond the fire, and perhaps a gunshot.

It was all _very_ confusing and John could feel his gears kicking into an elated, long-awaited state.

Marigold had long abandoned the bouquet and had run up to him, wrapping her train in one hand so she could move, and in her other hand—was that a _9-mil_?  John tried his best to guide the frenzied wedding guests to the back fire exit, as he asked, “Why do you have that?”

Marigold said, “Ah, well, I got a tip that something might happen today.  The exit’s down and to the left and right, people,” she called out.

“A tip?” John frowned, not liking the direction, “From whom?”  Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Turner were escorted to the back by Harry and few others.  The flames looked contained to the entrance for now, and judging by the looks of growth, John figured they had ample time to evacuate.  No need for panic, really. 

“Molly.”

“Molly?” he asked, surprised, “I didn’t know you kept in contact.”  Well, maybe panic was suitable for whatever exactly _happened_ to cause the fire, now that he thought about it.

She shrugged, “I go over to see her cats once in a while.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” he supposed, “What did she say, then?”  Perhaps Molly knew more than she let on?

“Vaguely something about how I should be prepared for anything.”

“And you felt like that warrants a pistol?”  Wouldn’t normal folk assume that ‘anything’ meant cold-feet?

“She then forcibly asked me if it’s true that in American most people owned guns.  And if I brought mine over.  I thought that was about as tactful as it could go, considering she was hinting for a _gun_ at my own fucking _wedding_.  I’ve changed my mind: she _is_ pretty ballsy after all.”

John pursed his lips and gave her an ‘I told you so’ look.  As far as socially awkward people went, Molly was one of the more spectacularly ballsy ones.

“What,” Marigold exclaimed, “I know looks can be deceptive, but hers is very _convincingly_ deceptive.”

“Fair enough.  Why do you have one anyway?”  Also out of place for normal people, at least here in the UK.  Anderson was rounding the last of the people, disappearing into the tall halls.  They should get going as well soon.

“I like shooting ranges,” she cleared her throat, “Very relaxing.” 

“Well then.”  If he had needed reassurance that this was the woman for him.  “So do you have any idea what’s all this ruckus about?”  He cast one last glance at the burning door, clearly set aflame by a chemical bomb.  That or struck by lightning, but John didn’t think he’d upset the thunder god that much.

“Not one bit, unfortunately.  It can’t be worse than that time with the matchboxes, at least.”

John hoped it wouldn’t.  It had its moments, particularly when Sh—but it was still too close to the edge of death.

And speak of the devil: just as he was thinking about death and fighting impossible battles, the left door broke down with a loud crash, and three men burst in.  They looked like Ironman-wannabes, with a lot of thick armour and gadgets around their bodies, but this wasn’t the time for comic thoughts.

“Uh,” John made out before realizing that holy bleeding _shite_ one of them had a handheld fitty—a real, sodding M2 .50 machine gun.  Wasn’t that just a _little_ excessive?  “Uh,” he tried again, “can we, uh, help you?”  This was starting to feel a lot like the matchstick case, but back then…

“Shut up,” the armed man yelled, and the middle bloke (a foot and maybe 40 pounds smaller) shoved him aside.  He was also armed, with a 9-mil (John could take a 9-mil usually, he was fast and good with his eyes and most importantly, lucky, but the way he held the weapon was too smooth, too much like how John felt with his Browning).  He was clearly the leader, as the other man cleared the way despite being much larger and with a much more deadly weapon.

“John Watson,” Little Boss snarled out.

“Er, yes,” John acknowledged, “that’s me.”  Marigold elbowed him, but really, these blokes clearly already knew that.

The man was in no particularly hurry though, it seemed, because the Little Boss repeated, “John, fucking, Watson.”

“Sure, if you’re into that sort of thing,” he responded calmly.  (Tweedledee on the right had maybe 20 pounds on him, but it was all biceps and no core, and John could definitely take him.  Except it wasn’t exactly a fair one-on-one match, and Marigold could probably handle about as much as a ten-year-old child, chained in yards of lace and chiffon as she was.)

“What I’m into,” Little Boss was evidently not easy to agitate, “is the code.”

“The code,” John repeated.

“Yes,” Little Boss repeated as he would to a very slow child, “the code.”

“What code?” John asked.

Little Boss rolled his eyes, “The code that matters.  Look, I know you have it, and my time’s too precious to be wasted on the likes of you.  So let me ask you nicely one more time, where, is, my fucking code?”

As if on call, Tweedledum to the left aimed the fitty at John.  Then he seemed confused as to who to aim for, and adjusted to Marigold; but after a moment, seemed to think better and refocused to John.

In that moment, John ransacked his brain for everything that could possibly be a code.  Nothing came to mind, except that strange note, but it had been the wedding color palette, and who in the world would use that as a code?  (He quickly glanced at Marigold’s pale, quivering face—no, he was sure she would tell him if there was any danger, and look at how utterly terrified she was.)

Clearly, she was thinking the same thing, because she had an expression of both confusion and realization.  And dammit, Little Boss also recognized the look and he spread out a slow, predatory smile and turned to Marigold.

“So, the little lady knows, does she,” he said smugly.

“Who are you calling little,” Marigold huffed.

Good, he grabbed her hand in encouragement, good, distract him, drag this out as long as possible.  They couldn’t possibly try that as the code: if it was right, they’d be useless and dead; and if it wasn’t, Little Boss might believe that they honestly didn’t know and they’d end up dead anyway.

“Feisty little thing.  Aren’t you scared?”

Hell yeah she was scared—her palm was cold and sweaty to touch and a consistent tremor ran through her, but her eyes were blazed as she played the idiotically fearless, simpleminded woman that the Little Boss was so ready to believe in.  “Why should I be scared?” she asked, a touch to curiosity peeping through the reckless front, as if she was genuinely asking a man with a machine gun why she ought to be scared.

Somewhere down the line, Marigold might have missed her true calling as an actress.

Little Boss chuckled, “You’ve never seen a fitty before?  Not even in films?”

“A fitty?” she asked, but could not stop herself from quickly glancing at the ready-to-shoot machine gun.

Little Boss’s eyes lightened, “So you’re _not_ plain stupid.  This is what we call a fitty.  Would you like a try?”

John blinked.  This was going too smoothly.  It must be a trap.  Marigold gulped, the sound abrasive against his ear, a loud clang even against his own thundering pulse.  He couldn’t let her take the risk.

“Really?  You’d let me try it?” but she already took a step towards Tweedledum, her fingers tugging at the white lace of her gown like some twelve-year-old in front of a large toy.  “Is it as cool as it’s in the movies?”

No it was definitely a trap, John tried to grab Marigold back, but she dodged to the side and petulantly stomped her feet, “C’mon, he said it’d be fine!”

“ _Come back_ ,” John commanded, but it was too late.  Marigold was far along enough that Tweedledee, thus far quiet and almost innocuous in his behaviour, shuffle blocked John and grabbed Marigold.

And it was a trap.  Of course.  Just when he needed some stupidity in this world.

“Now you don’t have to hesitate,” Little Boss declared, “we might even let your little BAFTA bird go if you cooperate.”

“You mindless miserable fat wart,” Marigold cursed in Tweedledee’s clutch, basking in the immunity of being a hostage but not floundering in case that made her collateral damage.

“Or,” Little Boss started again, this time directing to Marigold, “how about you tell us, and we _promise_ you’ll let you go on with your happily ever after, hmm?”

She thinned her eyes, “Who are you working for?” she demanded.

John didn’t think the whole delaying tactic was going to work anymore, but Little Boss was more than confident about timing.  “Charles is simply looking to get back what is his—a few pieces of mail would do you no good.  You wouldn’t even know what to do with the treasure!”

Little Boss didn’t think much of the Scotland Yard, apparently, or the intelligence of the wedding guests, who hopefully, should be dialling the emergency line _now_ if they hadn’t already.  At least Bill should recognize a highly potent and contained bomb.  Or at least Donovan should be suspicious.  Or _Anderson_ , for fuck’s sake, he’d been paranoid for a good two years, and so let him _be_ bloody paranoid.

“Now enough with the delays,” Little Boss announced, “What’s.  The.  Code!”

“Fine, fine,” John held his hands up, “I’ll tell you, Jesus, calm your rockers.”  He couldn’t even if he wanted to—how could anybody expect him to have memorized a string of random numbers?  But if he slipped his hands back, and pretended that he had his pistol, Tweedledum was twitchy enough to start shooting.  The fitty was unwieldy at best, so he’d be shooting at his ten o’clock.  So if he immediately dropped and rolled to the left, Tweedledee would react by whipping to him, but with Little Boss as a shield, Tweedledee would either hesitate or—pray hard, John—he’d accidently shoot Little Boss.  If he didn’t, Marigold should have reacted by now to at least break free of Tweedledum’s lax hold due to the machine gun, and if she was smart, she’d point her own pistol at Tweedledum.  That wouldn’t stop Little Boss, and Little Boss was too good of a marksman and wouldn’t pause in a lockdown like that.  It would stop Tweedledum though, the big block.  And then if he timed it right, he could take hold of the fitty and then they’d be—

Before John could put his ill-thought-out plan in motion, there, through the doorway, like a phoenix, out of the orange flames walked in a tall, lanky figure, his face hidden beneath a beret.  John recognized the hat—it was on Molly’s date—but before he even flung it off, John _knew_.

The _bastard_ , John thought.  It was all he could do to stop himself from running up and _punching_ the bloody twat to death again.  That complete _arsehole_ —how, why—fuck, what was happening, was he hallucinating?  Did his plan not work and was he lying dying on the floor?

“Hello John,” the figure from the past calmly greeted.

It must be real, John realized with a dizzy spell, because he looked different.  He still had floppy dark curls, but they were cut shorter, cleaner.  The scarf and coat was gone, and instead he had a casual polo, something he’d have _never_ worn before.  His skin was paler than ever, an unnatural pallor even for the fair-skinned Holmes family.  He was skinnier, gaunt in his cheekbones rather than just sharp, his Adam’s apple protruding uncomfortably, and the glimpse of collarbone had too much definition.  His jeans were ill-fitting, the sort one expected to see on unkempt uni students or tech-bar assistants, not the fastidious Sherlock Holmes.

But it was him.  Unmistakably.

It was _him_.

“You, you miserable wart,” he yelled, at a loss for the proper words and copying an earlier insult.  “ _What_ are you doing?”

“Saving you neck, as always,” Sherlock replied flippantly.  “Now gentlemen, or rather, men, I must inform you that the code is no longer of value.”

Little Boss sneered, “And why’s that?”

“What value,” Sherlock drawled slowly, “is anything to a dead man?”  And immediately he glided to the right and shot a pistol at Tweedledum.

Despite his mental prowess, Sherlock had never been the most reliable of shots, so it was with great relief and wonder that John saw the bullet pass straight into Tweedledum’s chest, staggering him back and making him lose his aim as he struggled for breath.  It was a terrific shot, even if it had been rather close, but of a calibre that Sherlock—the old Sherlock—would have been unable to achieve.

Plenty of things had happened in two years, it seemed.  But this was hardly the place to ruminate the possibilities, so John followed his gut instinct and went with his old plan—rolling until he wrangled the fitty out of Tweedledum’s dying grasp.

The machine gun felt like an extension of his arm, expertly and carelessly; like an added length of his soul.  His stomach lurched and his blood sang and his hands moved and the man was dead.

Sherlock had restrained Tweedledee to his knees, and stood over, tall and impossibly elegant even in baggy clothes and grime from the struggle.

A strange gurgling came behind him, and John turned around to see Marigold choking on air.

It was the first time that Marigold had witnessed him killing a person.  There had been plenty of violence, back in the day, but the shock of a limp body and blood spilling out— _oh my god how could it fall out so quickly, just like that, how could a body hold so much blood_ , he could almost hear her think, the way he first thought when he was first deployed.  He looked at her, mouth drier than when he had pulled the trigger, shoulders tense and ready to react to something that he didn’t quite understand in his adrenaline-high state.

“Oh my god,” she said, predictably.  Predictable was good, predictable meant he didn’t have to react to it. 

On the ground, Tweedledum’s hand swung and hit Marigold’s leg, and John reeled around by reflex to—

Bang.

“Oh my god,” Marigold repeated, looking down at the man she had just shot.  It went into his shoulder, but it knocked the wind out of the already failing man, and he crawled away from all of them, before giving out and lying limp on the ground, his heavy breath growing shallower by the second.

“Oh my god,” she said yet again, stumbling backwards.

John was reminded of the first time he killed somebody.  It was the second month out there, after he was just used enough to the war to get careless.  He was out to grab a buddy whose leg broke, and should have waited for reinforcements, but it was close enough to their base that he sauntered out.  It went bad.  He was sure that he was going to die at the time, leg bleeding and gun out of ammo.  But the enemy was shaking as badly as he was, and the man-boy with the bloodless face couldn’t have been older than twenty.  John had gathered his wits and rolled to his dead bubby and pulled the gun from the corpse’s stiffening fingers and shot the pale man-boy.  His commanding officer came running and pulled him up to his feet and gruffly told him that it didn’t mean a damn thing.  They walked back together to camp, where John let his leg bleed in the cool, safe shade.

At the end of the day, it did mean something.  It made him a captain.

And this would one day mean something too, when Marigold lived to sort it out.  Either an ugliness in life she can’t escape, or, if he understood her correctly, a scar that made her stand straighter next to him.

“Self-defense,” John told her grimly.

“I know,” she said feebly, “it’s just…”

“It’s different, I know, from shooting at a target.  Or even thinking about shooting people. “

“I didn’t think—when I thought—they don’t _bleed_ so much in my mind.”

“It’s okay,” John assured her, going over slowly, careful to not jolt her or scare her further with his large machine gun.  “There’s no meaning to any of this, just simple life or death.  It’s fine, save the thinking for later, with a therapist.”

“ _If_ you two are done being melodramatic,” Sherlock interrupted their moment, and John suddenly realized that it really, truly was Sherlock.  Only he could be such a _jerk_.  “I would like to say that—”

And John threw a right hook at Sherlock’s lofty nose before he even realized what he was doing.

“I supposed I deserved that,” Sherlock said after regaining his wits, touching his nose gingerly.  “As I was saying, we—”

And John’s left fist connected with Sherlock’s jaw in a satisfying thud.

Sherlock cursed, but straightened with dignity.  “I probably deserved that as well, I can’t really say” he said, “but if we’re going to be doing this, we might be here for a while.”

“Fine,” John settled crossly.

“So, I return to the twice interrupted suggestion of _getting along_ to apprehend the mastermind blackmailer.”

John glanced at the corpse of Little Boss.  “Of course there’s a mastermind.  There’s always another one.”

“Quite right,” Sherlock nodded.  “And he’s not far off.”

“Alright,” not like he had much of a choice, not when Sherlock was _back_.  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“No.”

“ _Fine_ ,” John echoed himself, pretending to be annoyed.  It was just like the old times already.

“By the way,” Sherlock examined him curiously, as if he was some Rubik’s cube that defied logic, “why didn’t you just give him the code to the safe?”

“And be killed?”

“He wouldn’t have killed you,” Sherlock said assertively.

“And you’re sure because?” John was having a lurking suspicion.

“I made sure that the word on the street said you had the code because of your close ties to Mycroft.  His favourite lover, actually, but I’m sure you wouldn’t mind the incremental damage to your reputation.”

Ignoring both the jab and the outrage of being casted as Mycroft’s _lover_ , John cried, “ _You_ said I had the code?”

“Well, you did, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I can only assume that it’s out of your doing as well.”

Sherlock beamed at him in that specific way he did whenever he thought John outdid the rest of the inane humanity.  “Why yes!  Your fiancée is quite impressionable when it comes to color suggestions.  All I had to do was to tell the curator to suggest these three colors.  Astoundingly simple, really.”

“Astoundingly,” John said dryly.

“Still, why didn’t you?  It would have saved you a good deal of trouble.”

“I—well, I couldn’t,” John confessed, “I didn’t remember numbers.”

Sherlock blinked.  “ _Ugh_ ,” he then grunted out in disgust, “I _knew_ you wouldn’t.  That’s why I even sent a note to _remind_ you.”

“That was you?”  It all made sense now.  Well, sense in that he understood what happened, but not why.

“Well not _me_ personally, but yes, by my orders.”

“How was I supposed to know to memorize it?”

He looked at him incredulously, “Am I wrong in assuming that weddings are supposed to be bit of a big deal, in your words not mine?  Who _wouldn’t_ have the RGB code memorized?  How else would you choose the tablecloth?”

John was ninety percent sure that Sherlock was mocking him now.  He must be some sort of a masochist, John thought, because he honestly was enjoying it.

“Anyhow, follow along now,” Sherlock bid needlessly.

John was about to, but then he turned to look at Marigold, her face still drained of color, her eyes bloodshot, her dress torn up and tattered, the very image of a bride out of a horror flick.

“Go on,” Marigold said, “I’ll be right up in a cab; once you know where you’re going, I guess.  What a day—prepare for anything, huh,” she said the last part to herself and sat on the marble steps of the altar, where just—what, thirty minutes ago?  It felt like thirty days—they just stood, ready to exchange vows and continue their entire lives as it were.

John gulped.  It wasn’t a choice, but it felt like one somehow.  He laid down the fitty—too heavy to run with, and wrapped his hands around Marigold’s.  He tugged gently until she let go, and with his right hand he dragged the fitty until it was by her side.

“It shoots with a lot of force.  Most people shouldn’t even try to face this though.  Just—just don’t think too much, okay?”

She nodded, “Of course.  I’ll just think of equity offerings or some stupid shit like that.”

“At least you know what it is,” Sherlock commented.

The good thing about Sherlock, John thought, was that no matter what John said, he would always come off as the decent person.  “Get home if you can.  Or come if you want.  The whole world’s possible now,” he told her, or maybe he told himself.

She pushed him a little, gave a brittle laugh, and promised that, “I’ll be alright.  I’ll just stay here for five minutes, then I’ll be able to get up.”

“Okay,” John said, rising as he did, “I’ll just be five minutes ahead of you then.”

“Five minutes,” she repeated like it was a pledge.

“Five minutes,” he did too.

And then he was out though the gap in the fiery door, following Sherlock like he was meant to.

The front wing of the venue and the entire garden was in flames, burning brightly against the severe grayness of the London sky.  They meandered through it strategically, and soon they were out and running the air out of their lungs.

John had never seen the sky so bright—half the air was orange, flickering with bits of soot, making the space look spectacularly deep.  The ground was warm, from a long day’s bask, but the night air had an unusual bite to it.  The fire was growing to be too large to be contained now, moving away from the building in the wind, eating the blossoming trees next to it, a light show that humbled the New Year’s fireworks.

They were running into trouble again, and John could see the world with a great clarity. 

**-.-.-**

Her pastel wedding had gone up in orange flames.  (Marigold never told John: orange was her favorite color.)

And such was the return of Sherlock Holmes—also known as the return of John Watson.

(At least, this was how John remembered it.)


End file.
